ze master plun!


Right about now, a lot of people I know are getting into a career crisis. The education system has trained us to get into the 9-5 ever since kindy. THEN you get to University/Tech and STUDY MORE during these oh so precious years. THEN you struggle to find a job related to the course you study and when you finally GET THE JOB you say "SHIT! IS THIS IT?" is this what I've spent my last 18 years in educational institutions working towards?! And as soon as the clock hits 5pm it's more work but no pay due to a crappy salary system? WORK FOR FREE? NO WAY!

So fortunately for me. I discovered this a few years ago. I've always turned down full time design jobs. I turned down being on a team for Microsoft's 'Sidewalk site', why? because I'm not a design slave. Design slaves that I have worked with wake up to noisy alarms at 6am to try to beat the morning traffic to work and in doing so, they get to work way before 9am. They often show their glorious dedication to the company by voluntarily staying back to work late 'free of charge' (since you only get paid from 9-5 and not for any other hours you put in). And to top it off, designers out there are working independently on jobs which generate $100,000 up and yet they're getting a crappy salary which rarely even amounts to 15% of the profits the company reaps. This is WRONG and probably due to the paranoia of losing the job and not being confidant enough with yourself! This 'negative thinking' gets people into RUTS.

So what is my plan? Oh it's good... believe me!

Ok, two years ago I started freelancing. Charging by the hour. Come 6pm, I'm still getting paid and weekends? Yup, I still get paid. This is the way it should be right? Like, why would you work for free? security? There really isn't such a thing as security! People get sacked all the time! I even got the 11am - 7pm slot. I found that getting to work at 9 meant that I had to get up mega early, skip breakfast and sit in an hour of city TRAFFIC just to get there at 9 on the dot. STUFF THAT! 11-7 lets me wake gently, eat so that I sustain energy for the day and I drive in no traffic what so ever. 7pm? everybody is still in the office and there is no traffic home.

So then I proceeded to start my own business DFM Design Fix Media.

The MASTER PLAN is:

Caryn and I share the work and as a result, we both work only half as hard as the person in the design work force.

This enables us to:

have a relaxing and rewarding 50:50 work:life ratio. This gives us time to live! as well as sustaining our passion for design work. Too much commercial design work can be soul destroying.

we can go for holidays when it's not the 'public holidays' this avoids the holiday crowd and we get cheaper travel deals!

avoid the 9-5 routine and the salary wrought (we get paid for every hour we work).

Skip the middle man (being the design company you work for) and quote for the job which means we reap 100% of the profits which makes design work entirely profitable and all the time spent working your arse off in design college and school feels like it's paid off because the pay feels right.

And we are totally expandable and have sufficient funds to employ others.

What do you think? if you live in Sydney and you're a hot designer why not join forces with me? It works. I have proof! Visit the DFM Design Fix Media web site and see for yourself!



b a c k