Sometimes, I'm a nervous wreck

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The reason I'm not a firefighter or a police officer (at least in part) is that I don't thrive well in chaos and emergencies. I tend to be a rather "planful" fellow. I like to take a problem and examine it more or less to death, then once my plan is in place, execute it according to a reasonable time line.

Ok, that's a fantasy, but it's how I'm wired. I'm saying all this for a reason.

Today, the Director of IT Operations came to me with some infrastructure graphics he needed modified. Cool. Another interesting problem for GIMP. I sketched out what he needed, then went to work. After one false start, I managed to carve up the original graphic (not created by me) and put together what he wanted. All was right with the world. Then he said he needed the company logo reduced in size and the registered trademark symbol reduced. I thought, "no problem". It should have been that easy.

I made the necessary adjustments and sent the graphic to him. He responded that both the logo and the trademark were too pixelated. I could see it in the trademark particularly and thought it was an effect of the reduction in scale. I worked on it and even made a trademark symbol from scratch, but at small sizes, the circle especially looked like heck.

I submitted my best effort knowing that I was missing something. Turns out I was.

I don't know what made me think of it, but in order to get graphics inserted in LaTeX to render correctly when exported to PDF, I had to change the color mode from RGB to indexed. That took away all of my color problems in the PDF, but it results in the graphic itself being pretty rough around the edges. When I edit the graphics, I have to change the mode back to RGB. Otherwise, the changes look krappy.

Oh duh! That was it. I quickly converted the color modes on the two best logos to RGB and sent them over email with a note explaining what had happened.

This was a rush job and I didn't know if I made it in time, I sent the guy an IM telling him to look in his email, then waited. Nothing.

I was on pins and needles over it. If I'd realized my mistake earlier (or remembered this issue in the first place), I could have saved a lot of time.

Finally, as I was stewing, the COO and CEO walked by my desk on the way to the elevator. The COO complemented my work and thanked me, saying they'd just sent off the document in question. That was a relief.

The reason I'm relating the personal experience is that many of you are entering IT for the first time and you may feel a little intimidated or concerned about the sufficiency of your skill sets (this doesn't always go away, unfortunately). While I can't promise this, my suggestion is to do your best, admit when you made a mistake or could have done a job better, and when you discover you've made a mistake, immediately correct it (even if you think it's too late). You don't know how your efforts are being viewed but however it works out, following this course offers the best opportunity to be perceived as being honest and having integrity. Even if you aren't perceived this way, you know within yourself that you've done your best.

 

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I get like that too, that's why I prefer working nights as no bosses are about.

When I am asked to modify a .pdf (probably because the pdf is the wrong size for press, I always forget which are the correct Quark Express tools to use.

To modify the .pdf files I normally change it to an .eps, once I have sorted it to its right size etc I'll print a copy to the proofer but I always forget to put seperations on and make sure it's RGB.

Normally I am asked to do things like that under pressure which makes things worse.

But I do have more IT responibilities now too.

 

Yep, I can vouch that this is true. He wiill pick something to death till you are ready not to just pull your hair out but his too. But, its what makes him good at what he does.

 

Gee...a writer who's detail oriented. What a shock.

 

A nice read, as always.

I was wondering where the topic was going, nicely done.