Category Archives: Journey to the Dream Job

As I wrote in a previous post, I was “fired” and the manager expected me to come back to work when they get ready to proceed to the next step. Last week, I was asked to come back, and signed a new contract. I’m living in the business world.

Now I have been back to the work. Is this good news? Well, it’s hard to tell. Some of the workers here are demotivated for a reason that I don’t want to describe here. When I saw them, I thought of my favorite quote shown in the profile page. Here is a full text.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

Now I tell this to myself.

The current contract will end at the end of May, so now I keep looking for a new job. I may end up taking an undesirable job again.  But whatever I do, be the best of whatever I am.

In last couple of years, I have thought of one line for facebook post, “finally, I live normally”. But there seems a long way before posting it.

In last couple of decades, I always do two things simultaneously; doing a full-time job or equivalent like being a full-time student, and preparing for the next step. What I mean by “living normally” is to do one full-time job and spend spare time on hobbies without worrying about next step. Some people, especially Japanese, assume that I like to be a rolling stone and spend an exciting life. This is not true. I want to spend an ordinary but meaningful life. It does not have to be exciting as long as it is meaningful.

In last few weeks, job hunting has been my full-time job, and I did not do anything else. It is dead necessary, but boring. Let’s think in this way; do as I have done in last two decades, which is to do a full-time job and prepare for next steps. Now job hunting, more precisely, finding a full-time job, is my full-time job. So, do something else for next step beyond that. I’m looking for a new career path as a designer, and I will most probably start a job at a junior level. Let’s prepare for the next step. This, in turn, helps the current job hunting.

When I talk about my future with my Japanese friends, I often say “I want to die like Raoh”. Raoh is a famous character of a Japanese comic called 北斗の拳 (Fist of the North Star). When he dies, he screams “我が生涯に一片の悔い無し (no single piece of regret in my life)”.

If you are one of few readers of this blog, you can probably tell that the design has changed. The web host recently changed the database, and the users have more choices of templates. As I wrote in a previous post, there are many web services that replace designers’ job like designing business card, but users often feel frustration; they have to choose from a limited number of templates. Now I have felt the same; I am given hundreds of templates that I can choose one from, but none of them is what I want. I had to compromise.
But they are, of course, very professional. Now I’m writing this post on my BlackBerry at a bar. I confess that I don’t know how to do it; whatever hardware the user uses, it opens in the most suitable way. This should be quite simple and easy for professional web developers, whether they have a sense of design or not. I’m sure there are plenty of people who have design skills and web development expertise. As I wrote in another previous post, I’m thinking of starting a small business in the future with my design skills. But how can I compete with people who have both design skills and technical expertise while I only have skills?
Anyways, let’s concentrate on job hunting for now, whether it is a part-time or full-time. But I will keep looking for opportunities to improve my design skills and use it in the real world.
Is this post not well organized? Hey, please go easy on me. As I wrote, I’m in a bar. I’m drinking!

I am not strong.
As I wrote in a previous post, I was fired and this is the second time to look for a job after graduating from McMaster University. I created this blog when I was looking for a job last time. If you read early posts, you see how discouraged I was then. I applied for many jobs, but all of them except for one responded. I was really depressed, but it did not kill me. Did it make me stronger? No, I’m depressed again.
I am even desperate; whether I am happy or depressed, what I can do now is to keep looking for a job and apply for any job I can do. Oh well.

Recently I found this internet article, This Is Why Your Resume Was Rejected. This is very, very, very discouraging. But this is the reality. One good thing to know is that I am not alone.

I am not good at making money.  I am not good at it at all.

Yesterday I went to Toronto to meet my “client” and my “students”.  As I wrote in a previous post, I designed a logo and business card for a friend of mine for free.  I’m not paid, so she is not really my “client”.  As I wrote in another previous post, I go to McMaster to serve as a teaching assistant in a class where I leaned last year. Yesterday’s class was at OCAD in downtown Toronto.  I am an unofficial volunteer TA, and they are not really my “students”.  But these are priceless experience for me. Networking is one of the things I expect, but it is only a tiny part.

Designing a logo and business card was an interesting experience for me.  Firstly, I used some Adobe Illustrator functions that I knew but had not used.  If I choose to do a freelance design job, I need to be familiar with those functions, and it was a good chance to practice it.  Secondly and more importantly, I found my role as a designer. There are many web services to help freelancers to design logo, business card and web site.  Those users choose some design from templates but not everyone know how to choose good ones.  Moreover, those templates do not satisfy everyone’s preference and the users have to compromise in some degree.  My role is to derive the client’s needs and preferences, visualize it with a set of design skills, and realize it with another set of design skills.  I need to practice it some more times before starting a business.

As I wrote in a previous post, I like teaching, and hearing “thank you, Hiro” after teaching is my delight.  It does not matter if I make money by doing it or not.  Am I stupid?  Maybe.  But who cares?

After not having worked for four days, I am officially unemployed from today.  Now what should I call myself?

When I went to a job fair early last month, I brought some “business” cards and called myself “in-between product designer”.  I was employed then, but was “in-between” a design school and a design job, so I called myself “in-between product designer”.  Since I launched my portfolio web site a few years ago, I have described myself as “in between” in the web site for this reason.  My LinkedIn headline is still “In-between Product Designer”, but since I am officially unemployed now, this is no longer a joke. On LinkedIn, you can call yourself as you like.  I’ve found that some people call themselves “Freelance Designer”, but I doubt some of them.  I dare to honestly call myself “in-between” there.

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the options I am thinking now is to do a part-time job and prepare for starting a small business.  Probably I will not do product design at least in early phases of the business.  I will focus on graphic design, web design and presentation design.  This is why the subtitle of my portfolio web site has been “Total Design Solutions by Hiro Shibata”.  Today I made new “business” cards and called myself Total Designer.  I know I will need to explain what it means, but it’s better than writing “Product Design, Web Design, Graphic Design, Presentation Design” to make it messy.

Anyways, I will wait for the former company to ask me to come back to work as they said (which I doubt) for a few more days.  Even if they actually ask me to work for them again, it won’t last long and I will need to look for a new job anyways.  In next few days, let’s sit back and make a plan for coming few months, and then look for a part-time job.