nike.

seriously.

so here i was (3 weeks ago) worried about my contract at adidas ending. i had applied to a few jobs, contacted aquent, made sure everything was pretty well wrapped up for karen and my coworkers. i liked my job and coworkers and friends at adidas. (more on that later.)

so an opportunity comes up at nike. it was design related and although i had pretty much exhausted all the avenues to find something at adidas, i had to take it. it being a jr position, only part time at 30 hrs/week, and even paid lower than what i was earning at adidas at $16/hour.

i sadly left adidas, a great company. corporate as they are, the people are very personable there, the president will smile at you and say hi on the skybridge, he will hold the door open for you in a very nice lime green or pink suit jacket with the originals logo pin on the lapel. i did not want to cause rifts or burn bridges (because i’d love the opportunity to return) i kept where i was headed fairly vague.

so i walk onto the very large, nice looking campus on my first day. there were a few hiccups at the beginning there though. i wasn’t sure of my start time and was concerned about the paperwork being finalized. anyway, it really is a nice campus. their cafeteria is absolutely huge with anything you can think of to have for lunch. i get shown my area. it’s not a cube, i am pretty much on their lunch table. in the middle of their section. i guess that’s fine. ugh, i’m on a pc, as long as i have what i need i suppose that’s ok. ick, this chair isn’t very comfortable/supportive, wonderful… i get settled in around noon, everything gets sets up, i find out they don’t need me fridays and only want me to work 7 hour days for a total of 28 hrs/week. (wait, WHAT?!) at 5pm i attempt my first drive home from beaverton.

that. drive. sucks.
i decide the next day that not only will i need to go to the gym in the early morning (for classes), to wait out traffic, i need to go in the evening. ugh.

the next day, after my early morning workout, i head out to work. the morning is uneventful. i am trying to understand this project i am to work on. it’s very confusing because i am jumping on board at the very end of someone else’s project. it isn’t organized in a way that i understand very easily, but like everything, i try my best.

mistakes. we all make them… i have my first mistake.

1. the overview section. during the morning the following monday we discuss the changes that need to be made. there are a long list of them. i regretfully forget adjusting the overview section. not sure when it was mentioned in the morning, but i didn’t think it was that big of a deal. i was bored most of the time… waiting for everything. my supervisor takes it upon herself to work on it but then passes it back to me because she has other things to do. great! i can make it work. she mentions that she is going to find new photos for it…

now i think everything is hunky dory.

i have my second mistake acouple days later, thursday.

2. photos. i am asked to adjust some photos to make it look like product shots are more full. no problem. copy paste erase the edges. the feathered erase and clone tool become my friends. i try to make everything match the accompanying descriptions. i have questions… where is my supervisor? at a meeting. ok, i’ll go through it again. looks good. images are there. awesome. ah there she is, finally in her cube… i tell her that i think everything is where they should be. it’s late wednesday. i’m ready for my next project. i am excited to find out that i will be designing pretty much the whole book (all 250 pages of it.) first up are the tabs. i need to find images for them. i am given pretty much complete design freedom… oh the joy!

so, i have a couple examples to share, but it being thursday and a bit late i say to my supervisor that i have some ideas, would like to continue warming them up and would like to share on monday morning if that’s ok. she says yes, great. have a nice weekend. see you on monday.

um, friday is a blur. i do stuff around the house. constantly thinking about the tabs and what i should do to make them pop and look really cool.

saturday is pretty much booked solid it seems like… class, new client meeting, lunch with friend, movies with other friends, home… i’m plum tuckered out by about 10pm.

sunday, family day… i go to mass with mom and dad, hang out all day. work on a few things. just an average nice day. still thinking how i’m going to make those tabs pop… we go out to dinner. talk about thanksgiving and what i’ll be doing…

monday. i wake up late so no early morning workout. i get dressed and get my workout bag prepared. heading out, i’m not feeling too good about something. anyway, i shrug it off as being nervous about my ideas. driving through lake oswego, i think i hear my cell phone ringing. (it was the radio…) i missed a call. hmmm. it’s from my placement agency, they called on sunday? weird. there’s a message saying “there’s a problem at nike, don’t go in on monday.” i think the worst and start crying… hey i’m a girl! i cry… i call back and leave a message saying i’m confused and need some details.

finally i receive a call back saying my contract had been cancelled and that they are trying to find out exactly why. They offered perhaps i was too slow? i keep thinking back about what i did, did i talk too much? was i too slow? what did i do that was so wrong???

i get the nerve to email nike and ask. the response was hyper-critical. here’s a synopsis:

“We did not make this decision due to your speed and timeliness on the project. We felt the attention to detail, which was a huge deal due to 250 pages of design and content detail fell short. I was prepping files to print on Friday and the entire Athletic Apparel section was missed where photos were not revised in PhotoShop. Same thing had happened earlier in the week with the Overview section, where you missed changes we discussed. You are comfortable with your software skill but this position required a great deal of attention to detail as time is such a huge factor.”

laughable. seriously. i did that work. although reminded, i did it and had to wait for the next project… perhaps up to an hour or two. i was there for 5.5 days. did they really expect me to pick it up that quickly? yes i did work at the other sportswear company for a year. that doesn’t mean i will be able to pick up someone else’s mess.

but regardless, i was very upset. sad pretty much all day long. probably crying for most of it. this criticism cut right to the quick of me… i am very critical of my own work and am very skilled and tout myself at having an excellent eye for detail. this extremely critical response just absolutely killed me.

i told just about all my friends what happened. even some who knew about where i was headed (contacts at adidas.) everyone has been so supportive. i very much appreciate all of you.

i just keep thinking about how very patient my prior supervisor was at adidas. i mentioned to a few that although they are the underdog (yay for the underdog) the folks that work there are very understanding and human.

so now. i get to wear all my awesome adidas again. a dear friend there is going to help me finally get some y-3 (YAY) and i think i’m going to personally boycott nike. i think i’ll be a lifetime consumer of adidas and quite happy to do so. although, i can’t get rid of some of my champion sweatshirts…

whew. at least today is a much better day. now, i’d better get working on an exciting design for a website i’m building..