It’s Just Justin

Not Getting Paid Enough

The work I do I really enjoy.  I have such a great gig.  I get to work wherever there is an internet connection and a power outlet that only has to be within four hours of my seat.  I get to travel and eat out at fancy restaurants when on those trips.  There are even times that I get to stretch my creative legs and do some pretty new things in advertising.

I guess, really the only problem is that I don’t get paid enough for the work that I do.  It is 3:45am on Tuesday morning and I am up because I haven’t gone to sleep yet.  I’ve been working on a presentation that as of this evening became due this morning before the work day begins on the east coast.

So yeah, it’s been a long night and technically it should be about three to five hours longer but I’m going to probably call it in.  I need to be making nearly an infinite amount more than I am right now, at least that’s what I think.  I just don’t know how to ask for the money.

How do you ask your employer for a raise.  From working on spec to working hourly or salary.  My employer always loves my work, but if they don’t get the contract for their clients, I don’t get paid.  It would make sense if I wrote the advertising plan but that isn’t always the case.  In this latest situation all I did was create the presentation materials from the Keynote to the design of the proposal and hand outs.

Typically anything outside of those are outsourced to a fantastic graphic designer, but for presentation’s sake and since we were on such a deadline, I did the design of all the extra materials.  Think posters, brochures, etc.

I’m doing the work of at least two people and up to the work of five.  Oh my, how do I fix this situation?  I can’t keep working on spec!  I haven’t finished my degree at Mizzou so I also can’t go to another agency, though I wouldn’t anyway.  My loyalty is with the one I work for now and it is very likely that I could take over the company within five to ten years.  So yeah, don’t wanna jump the horse.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?

Tags: Advertising, Business, Business Services, Graphic design, Work

The Proposal

This trip to Raleigh to meet with my hopefully new client was a good one.  We presented our proposal to board members and it went off without a hitch.  We were all a little nervous that the projector wouldn’t work, that the computers might glitch up…  Just about anything could happen.

We arrived at the restaurant where we would later show of our presentation, set up the computers, screen and projector and just sat tight for a bit, going over the presentation one last time and making a few last minute changes.

The members arrived around 7:00 and I was pleased to meet them.  Most all of them were very familiar with my mother who has worked for them for about seven years.  She has since retired and it has kind of been up to me to take her place.

Big shoes to fill for sure.  It makes me the third generation in our family to work for this client and for the first time in over 15 years we have competition.

Our proposal detailed how we would take the client from print and television advertising and into the digital revolution utilizing sits and services like GoogleAds, Facebook, YouTube, Wordpress Blogs and several other options including Twitter and Woopra.

This was almost all foreign to the board.  While a couple of board members have their own websites, most stopped at having an email address, which they may or may not know how to work.

Explaining each of the aspects of the proposal, even something with the name Really Simple Syndication (RSS) was anything but simple.

In the end I think they really dug the ideas we presented, mixing the usual print and television advertising with new media advertising.  Only time will tell.  It could be as soon as July 15 that we know where their votes are headed but as late as August.

Wish me luck!

Tags: Add new tag, Hope, Wishful, Work

Always Busy

It seems like every week I’m flying out somewhere or otherwise taking a trip out of town.

Texas, Birmingham, Chicago, Kansas City, Saint Louis, San Francisco… This Monday I’m flying out to Raleigh North Carolina and giving a presentation to the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission and then Ryan will join me in Texas to spend a long weekend with my grandmother and grandfather at their home there outside of Austin.

I am really excited/nervous about the trip to Texas.  This is the first time that I have really integrated a boyfriend in my family life.  I have always wanted to do so with my past boyfriends (namely, only, Landon and Geoffrey) but a mixture of my fear and my family’s obvious distaste for that quelched any chances of something like this.

However, my family seems to just love Ryan, a lot.  I mean, why not?  He’s smart, funny, loving, cute, incredibly diligent, charming and so kind.  He has helped me grow and feel comfortable in my skin.  He is such a light in my life and my family must see that.  He emails back and forth with my grandmother and my parents ask about him everytime we talk on the phone.  How great is that?

So anyways, going to be busy traveling but it will be a lot of fun and let’s be honest, getting out of Columbia is about the best thing one can do in the summer!

Tags: Family, Geoffrey, Kansas City, Landon, Love, North Carolina, Raleigh North Carolina, Ryan, Society and Culture, St. Louis, Travel, Work

Wine and Cheese Bistro Photoshoot

I did a photoshoot today at the Wine and Cheese Bistro featuring Chef Cyr and his dish, Seared Scallop with Spring Asparagus and Apple Cider Country Ham Vinaigrette.  Yes, quite the mouthful.  

Micheal and I went to the Wine and Cheese Bistro a few weeks ago and were definitely not impressed.  We had a good time but the salad was weak and the cheese tray a disappointment.  I guess we just ordered the wrong things because the dish that Chef Cyr delivered to the table today was beautiful and if it tasted as good as it smelled, incredible.

The lighting in there wasn’t so great.  Was hoping to use the “natural” light in the restaurant but had a sneaky suspicion that I wasn’t going to get that option.  The combination of overhead, low wattage incandescent lights with the green tinted sunlight streaming in the windows… yuck.  Green faces and orange foreheads.

Here’s what I had taking a shot of the area before adding my lights.

 

Then, we turn on the left light and see what that looks like.  It is a 650w light bouncing off a white light screen.

Let’s try the right light.  It’s a 1000w light shining through a softbox to diffuse the light.

 

Put them together and this is what you get!  1650 watts of lighting power!  Muhahahaha!!!

 

Click below to see all four combined and larger

So here are a few shots of the dish and Chef Cyr.  He was a fantastic sport getting his picture taken. 

 

Click above picture to enlarge

I had a fun time taking the pictures and he was fun to talk to while I did the portraits.  I wish I had another softbox so I could close the aperture a little more to decrease the depth of field but, oh well.  Sure looks a lot better than what I started out with!  Just goes to show the necessity of good lighting.

Oh, and that I’m a huge nerd… ;-)

Tags: Chef, Food, Lighting, Photography, Photoshoot, Restaurant, Wine, Work

Craigslist, Hmph

So, beyond being on a few missed connections, kinda funny really, I have never used Craigslist.  Today I did however and made a whopping three posts, whoa!  Oh and one bulletin board/forum post so I guess that’s four.

Yeah so anyways, I need to get back to my studying/reading/writing/brainstorming.

Tags: Bored, Class work, Coffee, Craigslist, Help, Kaldi's, Missed Connections, Personals, sale, School, Social Networking, Study, Tired, wanted, Work

New Rig, New Dig, No Job!

I’m Back!  (Once again)

My family has finally left the building.  For the past two weeks I have had either my mom or my grandmother with me, taking care of me, etc.  It was great to have them over, they were of infinite help to me, but a little space sure is nice haha.

My family has been very concerned about my health as of late.  With the seizures and extreme changes in blood pressure and pulse, I guess they have some reason to their paranoia.  Still, I wish they wouldn’t worry about me.  Despite being put through the ER three times in a week and then being put on a “toxic” dose of medicine on accident… I have been doing ok.  I missed about two or more weeks of school, much of the time I don’t remember care of Keppra, Depakote and Ativan.  Yay for perscriptions.

I haven’t seen much of Ryan during this time which has been the worst part of it all.  You really don’t what you’ve got till family comes in town and it’s gone…  Something like that.

Either way, a wonderfully good thing came of the visit.  I came out to my mom, for the fourth (?) time.  This will be the last, we talked openly and things just really seemed to work out.  She understands now that it isn’t a choice, that I didn’t hide it from her/the family because I wanted to have a secret and… well, it just is no longer that big ol’ white elephant in the room.

Speaking of rooms…  I have been doing some remodeling at the apartment.  I have much more to do yet, new chair, new couch, new TV, new coffee table, new dining table and chairs.  Once I change out all that to smaller, thinner, sleeker items, the large livingroom will appear full sized again haha.

As you can see in the top picture, I have done a little re-arranging of my workstation.  I added an Epson Perfection V500 Scanner, a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, two shelves for my photography toys and a new light.  The light made the biggest difference, I swear.  No longer do I get down sitting at the computer, it really, and literally, brightens up my day.

You might also notice the new laptop sitting next to the iMac.  Yep, I got a new Macbook Pro!  It’s so wonderful, I’m using it right now to write this post!  Got a stellar deal on it at the bookstore.  Chase and Ryan got one each as well!

Now that I’m back to feeling better, hopefully I will be able to post more often and do more photography.  First, and unfortunately, I have to catch up on my class work and make my nearly thirteen doctor appointment.  Even more unfortunate is the sad story that I had to leave my job at the hospital in order to make these doctor appointments and catch up with my school work.

That means that I will be having a social life again, eventually, but also means I will be poor and won’t be able to buy all the things I’ve been wanting… Sad story!

But having friends and keeping them is more important that having fun toys, any day.

Time for bed.  Going to finish the load of laundry for Ryan.  He takes flight later today for Miami and then a cruise.  Lucky!

Tags: Apple, Chase, Friends, Health, Job, Macbook Pro, Photography, Ryan, School, Social, Work

Let’s Bowl!

Last night I went bowling with Ryan, Richelle, Kevin, Cindy, Galen , Mark and Daniel.

As you can see, that would be the infamous Cosmis Bowling. At $14.00 a person… it sure as hell better be out of this world. And it was! I had a total blast. Broke 100… haha, not the best bowler but it was lots of fun anyway.

Rochelle, Daniel and Mark all have their own balls and ball carriers and shoes… they were quite fancy. Ryan and Rochelle seemed to be enjoying themselves as they danced with the … interesting music choices.

I also got to try out my new lens, it did quite a good job I think. Has some potential with experimental light photography as well as portrait photography.

It was a good fun time.

Powered by Qumana

Tags: Bowling, Friends, Fun, Lighting, Photography, Richelle, Ryan, Work

Qumana

I’m going to try using this new program, well new to me, called Qumana to post to my blog.  Unfortunately, the program puts this little tag, a signature if you will, at the bottom of all my posts.  I will leave it on this entry so you can see what I’m talking about but I really don’t like it!

This does do a very nice job of wordpressing though.  Online my site lags a little as I type and move images around etc.  It also has spell check, not that I need it… haha

Anyways, I gotta go to the condo, that’s where Ryan and I live.  I still have my apartment but we use it less and less it seems.  So sad because the place is gorgeous! Seriously though, I really do love my apartment, I wish we could live here… and there, but it just wears us out too much.  We need to find a way to merge the two into one place… hmmm

The ER tonight was more than busy.  Busy is an understatement.  We had over twenty people in the waiting room and more checking in the entire time I worked.  It was the busiest night I have yet worked.  What was in the air today? 

In other news, Panic! At the Disco has a new CD coming out in March.  Not sure what that mean to me exactly.  Of course, the teenybopper part of me (aside, teenybopper is spelled correctly according to Qumana, who knew that was even a real word!) will be getting that CD the day it comes out, who knows, I might even pre-order. 

In other news, you know your door/lock/intercom is too old when a locksmith walks by and leaves his business card.

That picture comes from our (Ryan and I) trip to New York.  Which reminds me… I miss New York!

First picture I used a Flickr (wow, it even knows how to spell Flickr!) link to post and the second I used Qumana to upload and post… Impressive!  Might never need to go to my wordpress admin page again!

Both pictures were taken with my iPhone… as we ran around the city from Apple store to Apple store trying to keep it charged!  It went two days of SOLID use before dying when we got home.  Incredible.

Ok, I’m out like gout.  Catch you guys on the flip-side.

Powered by Qumana

Tags: Blogging, Hmm, LoL, New Years, New York, Photography, Ryan, Software, Ugh, Work

So Not Ok With That

I got up today around… 8 am for my 10am Sunday graphic design class. Got outta class at around 12:30 and did some stuff around the house before going to work.

It was a quiet night in the emergency room, nothing too big, a few gun shot wounds, a few car accidents but no fatalities and nothing too bad. A good night if I can say so.

Around 10:00 I had a few minutes of free time and decided to check my voicemail. I had two new messages. The first one from 8:25 from “Private Caller”, the second from my brother.

I listened to the first call and immediately put my co-worker on the line with me. It was just too creepy.

At first I was like… why the hell would one of my co-workers give out my number?! Then I got kinda weirded out. The caller was using a private number and Starbucks is pretty good about not giving out numbers. And on top of that, he never really says how he got it. All my friends know I have a boyfriend and would not give out my number…

Then I played it Ryan, my boyfriend of course, and he thought that maybe it was a joke… That’s when I really started wondering about it, who would do this? How could I figure this one out?

So I get home, it’s about 1:15 in the morning and flashing on my answering machine is a new message. I never get new voicemails at home, no one uses that line except Ryan and my family.

Here’s what was waiting for me.

I can handle one freaky voicemail in a day, but two? This one is from someone named George Steinmetz, hard to understand what he is saying exactly but goes along the lines of… “Did you get those pictures I sent you? I don’t want anything just wanted to see if you got them. They are of my mother, your grandmother.”

I’m so not ok with any of this, just so we all know.

Tags: Audio, Class, Prank, Ryan, Ugh, Voicemail, Work, Wowrant

It’s Been A While

Sorry I never post.  I’ve just been so busy with school, work, work and life.

Things are wonderful though.  School sucks but the hospital job is fantastic.  Starbucks is ok… Hmmm.  I am scheduled to work on a day off, the day of a meeting at the Hospital and of the Elton John concert that I waited in line for hours to be the third person to get tickets.   That’s bullshit if I’ve ever smelt it… which I haven’t but still.

Ummm… Ryan is amazing.

Ummm… the new FX show Damages is the best thing on TV right now.  Promise.  Followed by Saving Grace, Kyle XY, Greek, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Eureka and Mad Men.  No… I never watch TV…

Speaking of which.  Since NBC left iTunes Music Store I had to get DishNetwork.  I’ve been trying to get it installed for week but I keep having to cancel, put it off, due to work schedules.  Boo to having to pay $65/month just cause NBC dropped out but Yay! to getting full HD on my tv.

Back to work!

Tags: Apple, AppleTV, Awesome, Blogging, iTunes, Money, Ryan, Starbucks, Television, Work