My Smallest Client
I wrote this a year ago and my son is now a year and half old. Yet everything else about this piece still holds true. As Steve Zissou so succinctly put it, “This is an adventure.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever had a definitive career plan. This is in stark contrast to most of my coworkers. They are generally a decade younger than I am and significantly smarter and more driven than I was at their age. They all seem to know what they want to accomplish over the next 5 years — where they want to be and what they need to do to get there.
In layman’s terms, they have their shit together. I am genuinely impressed.
At their age, I did not have my shit together. I’m currently a graphic designer at HubSpot but I worked a number of dubious jobs before starting my career. There’s no need to bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I spent many years:
- getting paid peanuts
- doing work I didn’t care about
- doing work I saw no future in or
- all of the above.
It was nobody’s fault but my own, mind you. There are certain sacrifices one must make to spend a decade playing in a local band.
I was an English major who had always futzed around in the art world but after realizing that graphic design was my true calling, I jumped into the deep end. I taught myself what I could on nights and weekends, learned from others, hit dead ends, made breakthroughs, tweaked, experimented, and put out several years of cringe-worthy work. I tried and failed and persevered and eventually (via a moment of cosmic luck) landed a junior designer role that turned out to be the start of a career.
This was good. After years of wandering in the proverbial employment wilderness, I had found my calling. Despite having no master plan, I ended up with a challenging and fulfilling job. “I am a graphic designer,” I would say proudly…as if my general appearance didn’t already betray this fact. I knew who I was.
But then, life hit the reset button.
Our son Milo was born on Halloween and he’s changed everything. For as much as I love what I do for work, it’s become impossible to think of myself as a graphic designer. I have become, first and foremost, a dad — rookie status, amateur division. This has been an odd transition because 1) I now define myself by the mere existence of another (tiny) person and 2) this definition has supplanted years of effort and work.
Milo doesn’t know what I do for work. He’s aware that I sometimes leave the house for long stretches but that’s about it. He doesn’t know or care what I do while I’m gone, just that I come back. And while I may be strictly “dad” to him, my creative work self lives on as a supporting character.
We all retain pieces of the roles we inhabit — we are nothing if not the sum of our past selves — but time demands that we reorder our priorities and definitions.
This is especially true when a little, curious human comes along. I’m still a graphic designer but it’s become a secondary role. I still work long hours and love what I do, but my professional self has been eclipsed by a fledgling career in fatherhood serving my smallest client ever.
In some ways, this is familiar territory. Learning to be a dad is not so dissimilar from learning to be a designer:
- You consult with established folks and draw on their experience, but ultimately have to forge your own path.
- You make mistakes (e.g. babies don’t like hot sauce) and learn and try and improve.
- You plan ahead, but more often than not have to improvise and adapt.
- You get frustrated and stuck one day only to celebrate a major breakthrough the next.
- And just when you get a handle on one facet of the job, a whole new mess of challenges pops up.
For me, fatherhood is the ultimate creative process: an ongoing project with a long-term client whose needs and wants change every moment. Creative brief? No, sir. What are the deliverables? It depends on the day. What’s the project timeline? Indefinite. Estimated hours? Really anyone’s guess.
So here’s the plan: there is no plan. Work hard, love what you do, and enjoy the ride.
(And Happy Father’s Day 🎉)
