Why I’m Avoiding Facebook…Again

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It’s mostly disappointment and frustration.

I rant about Facebook a lot. I used to confine my rants to this blog and to Twitter. But recently, I’ve begun ranting on Facebook.

Well, in this particular instance, I didn’t really consider it a “rant.” I mean, I know how to rant and a two or three sentence comment on Facebook falls far short of what I’m capable of. However, it was labeled a “rant” by someone whose opinion I usually trust and respect, so I’ll let it wear that label.

The Backstory

What was it about? Well, it was related to my big rant here, “Stop Asking Me to Echo Canned Sentiments in My Facebook Status,” in which I criticize the popular practice of “sharing,” via copy and paste, something written by someone else and asking your Facebook friends to post it as their status. There are people on Facebook who lean heavily on this practice to fill their own statuses with content. Indeed, some people’s status streams consist primarily of this kind of content. I can only assume it’s because they can’t think of anything original worth posting.

It wouldn’t be so bad if these things were interesting or enlightening in some way. But they usually aren’t. They’re usually gushy sentiments about moms or cancer recoveries or happiness or kids. Like a never-ending stream of Hallmark greetings that don’t even rhyme.

I solved the problem of being bombarded by these things by simply turning off the status updates for the people who did it 90% of the time. That really improved Facebook for me.

Lennon Life Quote

This is an example of what I mean. Yes, it’s a thoughtful quote by John Lennon. My problems with it: (1) seeing it about 10 times from 10 different people over the course of a week and (2) the absolute lack of discussion of what Lennon may have meant by this and what we could learn from it. No commentary; just a bunch of “likes.” (Note the typo in this version.)

But then came the offshoot: a pithy slogan or saying rendered as text on an image, sometimes with a graphic element or photo. People would put these “pictures” on their wall. Although friends weren’t usually asked to share them, apparently lots of people thought they were worth sharing and did so. So the same handful of images kept appearing in Facebook updates posted by my “friends,” over and over.

What I find odd about this is that this practice was picked up by people who hadn’t participated as much in the copy-and-paste status craze. This was being done by a few people who normally share things far more interesting. I couldn’t understand why they had slipped to this level. Since occasionally they’d still post something of interest to me, I couldn’t simply turn off their updates.

So I posted my own update, asking people to stop this practice. Although I got an “Amen!” or two from folks who obviously felt the same way as I did, I was also accused of ranting.

Oh, well.

What Social Networking Means to Me

I think the root of the problem is the way I look at social networking.

I have a primarily solo existence. I work from a home-based office and, other than my dog and parrot, am alone all day. I now live in three different places throughout the year, so I don’t have many solid personal relationships with friends. Sure, there are folks I could call to go out to lunch or dinner or join me for a helicopter ride. But my relationships with these people aren’t so strong that I see them daily or would call one to cry on his or her shoulder.

This might sound like a lonely existence, but it’s not. I’m the kind of person who keeps busy all the time. I’m juggling two careers and often have work to do for either one. And if I’m not working or doing what needs to be done to line up the next job(s), I’m blogging or reading or editing video or exploring my surroundings with my Jeep or helicopter and camera. Or doing countless other things to fill my time and my mind.

The point is this: People who work in offices or with other people get social networking at the workplace. I don’t. People who live in one place and have a network of friends and family members nearby get social networking during their off-work hours. I don’t. Although I can’t classify myself as “lonely,” I also can’t deny that I miss social interaction with other people.

Social networking by computer fills this gap. It enables me to get a dose of personal interaction with other people whenever I need one. Twitter is my office water cooler — and it has been for the past 4-1/2 years.

Twitter vs. Facebook

I was drawn to Twitter right from the start. Facebook….well, not so much.

On Twitter, I follow people from all over the world. The vast majority of them are complete strangers — people who I have never met and likely never will. (I have, however, over the past 4-1/2 years, met quite a few of them.) And I only follow about 130 people because that’s the maximum number of tweeters I can keep up with.

On Twitter, I can be picky and choosy about following people. As a result, I follow people who I feel are interesting. They either tweet interesting or funny or enlightening things or they share links and photos that are interesting or funny or enlightening. I can also keep the signal to noise ratio very high by simply following or unfollowing people.

I learn about current events from what scrolls by in my Twitter timeline when I sit at my desk: the ditching of a plane in the Hudson River, Michael Jackson’s death, the east coast earthquake — the list goes on and on. It’s almost like having a news radio station turned on low in the background while I work. Getting more information about a news story I read is as easy as clicking a link in a tweet or doing a quick Google search.

I interact with the people I follow on Twitter. I do this by replying to them. Often we get conversations going. Sometimes other people join in. It’s a nice break from my work day.

I know a lot about some of the people I follow on Twitter. When I see content on the Web I think would interest them, I tweet it, sometimes with an @mention so I’m sure they’ll see it. Some of them do the same for me. I get links to tons of interesting content via my Twitter friends. It really helps expand my horizons and give me new things to think about.

[It’s interesting to note here that my attention span is longer than two to four sentences. So although so many people on Facebook echo the short, pithy sentiments of others, many of the people I follow on Twitter link to full-blown articles that have been researched and carefully crafted by writers who know how to make a point. It’s substance, not fluff.]

Although there is a tiny handful of people I follow on Twitter that don’t always tweet interesting content, 140 characters seems a lot easier to ignore than longer, in-your-face passages of text or images.

Facebook, however, is different. Until recently, the only way you could “follow” someone on Facebook was if that person agreed to be your “friend.” The relationship was always two-way. (On my account, it still is; I currently don’t allow “subscribers,” although I’ll likely change that soon.) So if a person asks to be your friend and you say no, that person gets insulted. This is particularly awkward if the person who wants to be your friend is a real friend or family member that you prefer to keep at a distance. (This happened to me with my stepsister’s teenage son, who I have not seen since he was an infant and have no desire to be Facebook “friends” with.)

Of course, Facebook recently added all kinds of privacy controls so you can group your friends in a variety of ways and pick and choose which groups see which content you post. This adds a level of complexity that I simply don’t want to deal with. I don’t want to “manage” my friends.

And it’s pretty obvious that the people I’m friends with on Facebook don’t give a damn who sees what they post. One young family member who will soon be entering the job market is posting unflattering photos of herself at parties, along with the kind of inane commentary that may get her resume shuffled to the bottom of any pile it ends up in. And, of course, there’s that constant stream of second- or third-hand quotes and images that apparently everyone has to see.

And that brings up the excellent flowchart shown below. One of my friends posted it on Facebook and its one of the few Facebook images I felt good about sharing. Funny, yet informative and oh-so-true. The one thing my Facebook friend didn’t share was the source; here it is. (Tip: Linking to the source is an excellent way to reward content creators for sharing good, original content. Just saying.)

Where Should You Post Your Status?

Are Facebook Users Addicted to Likes?

Note the two bottom-right icons in this flowchart: Facebook and Twitter. What’s the difference between them? Whether you’re “addicted to likes.”

You see, on Twitter, there is no “like” button. If people like what you’ve tweeted, they can respond in one of two ways:

  • Retweet it. Depending on how they retweet it (via Retweet button or use of the old RT notation), you may never know your content has been been retweeted.
  • Reply to it. If you’re paying attention and actually reading incoming tweets, you can enjoy the pleasure of entering into a conversation with a fellow Twitter user — who might not even be someone you follow. (This, by the way, is how I find people to follow in Twitter; they interact with me.)

I suspect Facebook users are addicted to the Like button. They seem to click it an awful lot. And so much of what they post is what I call “Like bait” — content found elsewhere that other people liked.

So instead of sharing fresh new content and ideas with their friends, too many Facebook users take the lazy way out by simply posting short content created by others.

(Many Twitter users do this, too, of course. I just don’t see it as much because I simply don’t follow the people who do.)

Enter Google+

You may scoff at Google+ — as the above flowchart also does — but when it first started, it definitely had something interesting going for it: people were using it to communicate thought-provoking ideas. Indeed, it was almost blog-like at times, with relatively lengthy posts that had real substance and originality.

As you can imagine, I was really drawn to that.

Unfortunately, when Google+ went public, it attracted some of the same folks who are already on Twitter and Facebook. And guess what? Those folks are posting the same stuff they put on Twitter and Facebook. So the signal to noise ratio has considerably dropped over the past few months.

The good thing about Google+ is that there’s no “friend/friend” relationship. It works more like Twitter, so I don’t have to worry about insulting people. I “circle” the people I find interesting and drop the others. Or use filtering (now also available on Facebook) to narrow down whose posts appear in my stream. (And yes, I realize this is a form of friend management and no, I’m not happy about it; I’ll likely just drop the people I don’t find interesting and skip the filtering.)

Will Google+ replace Facebook in my social networking source list? Too soon to tell, but probably not.

You see, I’m not convinced I need either one of them.

Sucking Time with Little or No Benefit

The reality is, Facebook (and Google+ and LinkedIn and whatever else is out there) is a frustrating time suck. (Twitter is, too, but not nearly as much — at least not the way I use it.)

To me, Facebook is more frustrating than rewarding. I’m learning things about friends that I never wanted to know. I’m discovering that some of the people I thought were intelligent and thoughtful are really kind of dumb and shallow. I’m discovering that some of the people I respected don’t act as if they respect themselves.

I’m frustrated because in Facebook, I see a microcosm of America as a whole: a mostly politically apathetic people who value celebrities, fashion, and luxury goods over meaningful personal relationships and intellectual development, an attitude of caring for their fellow man, and an understanding that there’s only one shot at life and they need to make the most of it.

The time suck problem goes almost without saying. If you participate in social networks, have you ever tracked how much time you spend on them? According to this New York Times post:

Social media account for 22.5 percent of the time that Americans spend online, according to the report, compared with 9.8 percent for online games and 7.6 percent for e-mail.

And this Mashable piece breaks it down for Facebook:

The average U.S. user spent a whopping seven hours and 46 minutes on Facebook in August [2011]. That’s a full 15.5 minutes the average American spends on Facebook every single day.

Nearly eight hours in a month? That’s nearly four full days a year. Do you really want to spend that much time looking at content that really isn’t going to make a difference in your life?

I don’t.

So I’m off Facebook again, at least for a while.

Sure, my blog posts — including this one — will automatically be listed as a Facebook status; that’s done automatically by some Web-based app I set up years ago. And I will stop by to check on Flying M Air and Beaumont Cellars. And you might even read updates about my new books and appearances there as they are released. And I’ll try to come by weekly to follow up on any comments posted to my updates. But I probably won’t hang around long enough to click any Like buttons or challenge the meaning of John Lennon’s wise words. I’ll avoid a lot of frustration by staying away.

And my friends won’t be bothered by my “rants.”

Occupy Wall Street

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I’ll voice my own opinion through the words of others.

I’ve been pretty quiet about the Occupy Wall Street movement. And I’ll be honest here: I’m keeping my thoughts to myself because they’re not exactly popular.

And that’s made me wonder whether I’m missing something. Why is it that I’m not all gung-ho about this movement? After all, I share a lot of the same frustrations as the Occupy protesters. Why is it that I don’t feel comfortable speaking out in support of them?

It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I really didn’t support them — not the way most of the people I know do. I think a lot of people have been blinded by emotion and aren’t seeing the big picture. I’m seeing a bit of that picture, mostly because I’m reading the thoughtful words of others who are far more knowledgable than I am.

I’d like to explain where I stand on this issue by sharing three blog posts I’ve read about the Occupy movement that really ring true to me. I’ve linked to these on this blog and on various social networks, but I haven’t really talked much about why they’ve echoed my sentiments. Here are my comments, in the order in which I read them.

Like a Rolling Stone

First off, Matt Taibbi’s excellent October 25 piece for Rolling Stone, “OWS’s Beef: Wall Street Isn’t Winning It’s Cheating.” This is Matt’s attempt to explain why the protest isn’t about envy. It’s about anger — anger over the fact that Wall Street investment firms and banks aren’t playing by the same rules that the American public is. He points out the availability of interest-free loans, forgiveness for missing payments, bailouts for losses resulting from bad/careless business decisions. He’s absolutely right: the average American doesn’t have Uncle Sam to help him out of trouble if he makes a bad investment decision or misses a mortgage payment. Financial institutions do. And because of this, they’re able to reap huge profits and pay their executives huge salaries and bonuses. They’re cheating, Taibbi argues, and that’s how they’re winning. And that’s why the Occupy protesters are angry.

I pretty much agree with this. After all, it explains why I’m angry. I’m angry partially because my tax dollars went to rescue financial institutions that were “too big to fail” instead of creating jobs, improving education, or helping people get affordable health care. I’m angry because the management of those financial institutions — the same people who send jobs overseas, stick customers with huge fees, and take bailout money when they make business mistakes — have huge compensation packages. I’m angry because I know that the reason big business gets all these benefits is because they paid good money to line the pockets of too many politicians, one way or another, and those politicians are taking care of the people who paid them off — not the people who voted them into office.

And here’s another thing: If I make bad decisions in my business, my business would fail. Why is it that big financial institutions aren’t allowed to suffer the consequences of their own mistakes — and I have to? That’s what’s making me — and many others — angry. It’s the unfairness of the system. That’s the point Taibbi is trying to make and I think he does a pretty good job, with lots of examples to illustrate what he’s saying.

But, at the same time, I think Taibbi’s mistaken if he thinks all of the OWS protesters are driven by anger more than envy. Too many are pushing socialistic ideas like wealth redistribution. Too many believe they’re entitled to jobs — not just honest jobs that utilize their skills and give them a stepping stone to move up. They seem to want only certain kinds of jobs with only certain kinds of companies, jobs that pay a high wage without making them “wage slaves.” I blogged about this the other day.

And with people like that in the movement, it’s hard for me to support the movement as a whole.

Who Is Dave Ramsey? Beats Me.

Dave Ramsey’s October 19 piece, “Dear Occupy Wall Street ,” summarizes another reason why I can’t fully support the OWS movement. This is what has been nagging me for a long time — the movement hasn’t been able to adequately communicate exactly what it expects to achieve. In this piece, he critically reviews the slogans found on OWS protester signs. His thoughts pretty much echo mine.

Now I don’t who Dave Ramsey is. From what I gather from his website, he’s some sort of financial advisor. (I see a tab labeled “Church Leaders” on his home page and I find that worrisome, given my own lack of belief.) Is he left, right, center? I don’t know and I don’t care.

One of the problems we have these days is that if we know the messenger, we automatically agree or disagree with what he says because of labels put on him. But do we ever stop to read what these people have to say? I don’t care if Dave Ramsey is an ultra conservative, Tea Party card-carrying wacko — I agree with almost everything in this piece. Why don’t you read it and see if you do?

Words of Wisdom from Alaska

And finally, tying all the strings together in a nice, neat package, is a recent post by Jim Wright in his blog, Stonekettle Station. I like Jim’s writing. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He says exactly what’s on his mind. But instead of just blathering out solid opinion (as I so often do), he backs up everything he says with facts or information from his own personal experiences as a retired naval officer.

In “Occupy Wall Street, Lessons From The Tea Party, and Niven’s Law,” Jim begins by explaining why it has taken him so long to write about OWS. And, as I read, I began to realize that he also felt a lot like I do about the movement.

Jim’s main beef is twofold:

  • These are not peaceful protests. While yes, it’s true that in some instances, police have overeacted (think pepper spray in NYC), in many other instances, the police have just been doing their job to control unruly mobs. Interestingly, he compares OWS protesters to Tea Party protesters and the Tea Partiers come out looking not only a lot more civilized, but a lot more effective.
  • In a democracy like ours, We the People have the power to make changes like many of the ones the OWS protesters apparently want. That power is granted by the vote. Jim points out that the number of people who bother to get out and vote is rarely as high as even 65%. That’s 35% of the people who — in his opinion (and mine) — have absolutely no right to complain about elected officials and the laws they pass.

Jim’s no-nonsense piece is an excellent critical analysis of the situation, along with suggestions on how it can be improved to be more effective. After getting a lot of feedback, he wrote a follow-up piece, “Occupy Stonekettle Station, The Follow Up,” which attempts to bring rational thought into a reader discussion dominated by emotion-charged excuses and criticisms. But will people listen? I doubt it.

The Way I See It

In my mind, the OWS movement has problems on multiple levels.

  • Emotions are getting in the way of reason. People are caught up in the anger or envy (or whatever) of the main theme. They’re either for it or against it, period. They’re too emotional to consider the facts.
  • The main theme (and sub themes) are not being clearly communicated. Because the movement is so disorganized, there are too many themes and some contradict others. Yet supporters focus on the ones they agree with and assume the whole movement is about that. This simply isn’t the case.
  • Sources of information are biased and are showing just one side of the issue. For example, we all saw a few innocent women get pepper-sprayed for no apparent reason — and that image got many people to support the movement. But did we all see the man defecating on a police car? Or the mob breaking windows at a bank? Or the people hurling burning bags of shit at police officers? If so, did that change your opinion of the movement as a whole?
  • People trying to engage in a reason-based discussion of what’s going on and how it could be made more effective are being shot down by the blind supporters of the movement. Why do you think I’ve been so quiet? Every time I mentioned my doubts on Facebook or Google+ I was blasted by “friends” who could only shoot back with emotion-based arguments.

It’s unfortunate because the movement is polarizing would-be supporters, thus losing the support of rational, thoughtful people who might help it succeed.

Those are my thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement, as voiced by others who have written in more detail about it. I’m not against it, but I’m not for it in its current form.

I’ve been saying for months now that we need to clean house, we need to vote out everyone in office. I’m not blowing smoke. I really think this is true. Politicians are in the back pockets of big business. We need new politicians — candidates who actually care about the people — to move in and make a change. The only way to get that is to vote.

Don’t fight the system. Use it.

Got Something to Add?

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

I’ll leave comments open here — at least for a while — but I will remind everyone of the comment policy. I will not approve any comments that include a personal attack on me or any other commenter.

In addition, if you want to comment on this post, read the articles I linked to here first. If your comment demonstrates that you didn’t even bother to read what you’re commenting on, I will not approve it. I’m presenting this blog post as an attempt to get a reasonable discussion going. If you can’t be reasonable and back up what you say with facts, don’t waste your time here.

Just because You Went to College Doesn’t Mean You’re Entitled to a Job

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The Occupy movement and jobs.

My friend Jim called from Washington state today. He was driving through on his way to Chelan from where he lives in Coeur d’Alene, ID. He passed the town I spent three months in this summer, thought of me, and called.

Jim has some very definite political opinions, some of which I agree with, others of which I don’t. We can speak civilly about politics but I often pull the plug when I get bored with the discussion. After all, I’ll never change his mind and he’ll never change mine.

We talked about a bunch of things and then our conversation turned to the Occupy Wall Street movement. He described a video he’d seen that showed two men at an Occupy camp with a table set up to help connect protesters to employers. What struck him was one of the protesters saying “I can’t do that” for many of the jobs listed. She seemed to imply that those jobs were beneath her.

I tracked down the video and watched it. Watch it for yourself:

Now I’m not naive enough to think that creative editing wasn’t involved here. Maybe they edited out a lot of the more positive responses from protesters. And yes, the whole thing could be fake.

But although I do think that creative editing might have emphasized a certain message, I don’t think it’s fake. And I do think there are a lot of unemployed young people out there — possibly many camped out as Occupy protesters — who think that the jobs available to them are beneath them.

And that’s the subject of this post: the feeling of entitlement among recent college graduates.

My Ancient History

I graduated college nearly thirty years ago. I had a degree with “highest honors” (I wrote an honors paper) in Accounting and was a member of the Accounting Honor’s Society at Hofstra University, which was then one of the big private universities for business. You’d think I’d have no trouble getting a job. But like everyone else, I went through the stressful process of interviewing on campus. I had six interviews and got one offer.

I took it.

It didn’t matter to me that I was making $14,097 — 25% less than a lot of my friends who had the same degree from the same college. It didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t working at one of the (then) Big Eight accounting firms. The only thing that mattered was that I had a job that would pay my rent and keep me fed. I assumed (rightly, it turned out) that if I worked hard and did my job the best I could, I’d get raises and promotions and work my way up.

Two years later, at age 22, I became a supervisor. Everyone who worked under me was older than me.

My raises averaged 10% to 15% a year.

After five years, I realized that the only way to move up was either for someone to die or retire or for me to move out. So I went to another company. And I worked my way up in that company, too.

At 28, I was earning more annually than my father had ever earned annually in his life.

Then I decided I didn’t want to be a number cruncher. I wanted to be a writer. So at age 29, I engineered a career change. After two rough years, my income recovered; after five years, I was doing very well. But I worked my ass off to get there.

At age 40, I engineered another career change — this time to be the owner of a helicopter charter business. But because of the cost and financial risk involved, I didn’t let go of that second career. Instead, I juggled two jobs — and I continue to do so to this very day.

Point: When I was a kid, I was taught that to get ahead in life, you had to work hard. I also later learned that you had to work smart. And guess what? It works.

Entitlement

It seems to me — not just from this video, but from the bits and pieces of what I hear young people say — that they think that just because they spent 4 or 5 years and countless thousands of dollars to go to college, they’re entitled to get a job when they graduate.

Entitled.

As if the world will step back and open up thousands of job opportunities a year just for them.

But its not just any job that they want. They want a cushy job — something that pays more than enough to cover the rent and feed a family. They don’t want to be a “wage slave” — whatever the hell that is. They want to use what they learned in school, that superior knowledge that sets them apart from people who actually work for a living.

I guess you can read the anger in my words. It’s hard to control it sometimes.

I think about my first job, at age 13: a paper route delivering 54 papers a day on foot. I think about my next job, a year later, spent scraping rust off a chain link fence with a wire brush, accompanied by three other underprivileged girls whose families were poor enough to qualify for summer work.

I think about the three part-time jobs I held down while I was carrying an 18-credit load in college just to make sure I graduated within four years. I think about how my weight dropped down to a ridiculous 105 pounds because I simply couldn’t eat enough to meet my energy needs.

I think about my first apartment, a studio four blocks away from a bus station where shootings had become routine. I think about learning how to float checks two days before payday, when the money ran out. I think about buying “no frills” pot pies for dinner at 33¢ each. I think about taking the subway to bad neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx because that’s where the audit I had to do happened to be. I think about the day a bum near Times Square — the old Times Square — grabbed my butt as I walked by during my lunch break and how I swung around and hit him.

And yes, I think about writing a monthly check to pay my school loans for ten straight years.

The hard times didn’t last long. I worked my way through them. I showed my bosses that I was a step above the others, not by waving a diploma and whining that I deserved a raise but by working harder, better, and faster than any of them. I got the promotions and pay raises I needed to move forward.

Why can’t today’s young people do the same?

No one is entitled to a job. You have to earn it. Earn it by being smart, by being a team player, by knowing what the hell you’re doing, by doing it right. Get off the fucking cellphone, stop texting your friends, and stop whining about “the man.”

This is real life, not a television show. You’re no better than the other thousands of young graduates looking for work — until you prove you are. What the hell are you waiting for?

Go Ahead, Make Your Excuse

I cannot support this entitlement attitude in any way, shape, or form. If you have no job, then no job is beneath you.

Comments are open. I’m sure this post will soon be inundated with excuses. Sound off. This is your chance. Just don’t expect me to accept excuses.

Desert Run by Helicopter: 100 feet @ 100 knots

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Another video for your consideration and comment.

Every once in a while, I find myself alone in my helicopter with a long stretch of empty desert between where I am and where I need to go. It’s these times that I get down and dirty (so to speak) and hone my high-speed, low-level flight skills.

You might ask why I need to do this. Well, occasionally I get called for video jobs that require me to chase race trucks on off-road tracks out in the desert. I did the Parker 425 three years in a row, and I’m hoping to do it again in February. Practicing with no one else on board is a good way to keep my skills where they should be when I need them — without putting someone else at risk with this relatively dangerous kind of flying.

The most recent time I had this opportunity was about two weeks ago, when I had to fly from Aguila to Phoenix, AZ. There’s a lot of empty desert along the way. To make the situation even better, I was flying late in the afternoon, with the sun mostly behind me. You can bet I didn’t hesitate to hook up my helicopter’s GoPro “nose cam” to capture every moment of this 40-minute flight.

Here’s nearly two minutes of it, set to music, for your enjoyment. If you live in Wickenburg, you’ll probably enjoy seeing my view of Vulture Peak.

Elance

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What a freaking waste of time.

I needed a logo for my Maria’s Guides website and line of books. I wanted something simple, something that communicated the brand as well as the fact that the “guides” were in print, video, and ebook formats.

I have no design skills. None. I know what I like when I see it and I can often modify something that’s close to what I like to make it more in line with what I need. (That’s basically how I “design” my websites: I start with a theme and modify it.)

At first, I put a request on Twitter for a book cover design. That was a mistake. I got a bunch of responses from strangers linking to their portfolios or just promising they could do the job. (I created it myself based on a few other book cover designs I found online; it’s okay for now.)

Trying Elance

I decided I’d need a pro for the logo design. My budget was under $500, preferably under $300. I remembered hearing about Elance and decided to give it a try.

Elance is a Web site that connects freelancers with people needing freelance work done. It seems like a good idea and I know there are plenty of designers there. So I set up an account and used the “logo” template to submit a request for proposals.

I should have realized that something was wrong when I got six bids within about fifteen minutes. Although I’d set up my budget for less than $500, the bids ranged from $60 to $149. Four bids were from (supposedly) U.S. based companies, one was from India, and one was from Argentina. Most of them linked to logos or business packages they’d (supposedly) designed for other clients. Most were obviously canned responses that showed no indication that they’d read my request for proposals. LIke this:

Hello,

Thanks for reviewing our proposal.
We understand your requirement for creation of logo design. Plz check our portfolio attached.

Also view our elance portfolio :
[URL redacted]

or this (supposedly from a U.S. based company):

Hi and Thank you to review our bid!!
This Bid includes:
1) 7 Initial concepts of logo. (Designed by 6 different designers)
2) A complementary Stationery concept (includes Business Card, Letter Head, and Envelope)
3) EMAIL SIGNATURE without any extra cost. (100% NO COST)
4) Unlimited Color schemes of selected design.
5) Original Copy right files. (All rights reserved by you)

It should be noted that all I asked for was a logo.

I decided to give it a try by picking one of the (supposedly) U.S. based companies that submitted a proposal that didn’t seem canned. Their samples were in line with what I was looking for. The price was very good — only $65 — so I figured I wouldn’t lose much if they completely sucked.

On accepting the bid, the first thing they did was send me a list of information they needed. This was the same exact information I had already provided using the Elance template for a logo request.

So apparently, they hadn’t read my request either.

With my response, I added:

PLEASE do not respond to me with canned communications. I have extremely low tolerance for people who waste my time by asking for information they already have. I realize there’s not much money in this, but that’s not MY fault. If you can’t treat me like a REAL client, let’s end this relationship now.

We got past that and they started submitting designs. The first batch had five. (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to show them; I haven’t paid for this yet and, chances are, they’ll use these same designs again for another sucker.) I liked one of them — it featured a graphic representation of a book emerging from a square — and made some suggestions:

…is there a way that the graphic part can indicate both books and electronic media? Maybe a 3-part icon that includes a representation of a book, an ebook (or tablet computer with writing on it), and a movie? For the movie, the old-fashioned filmstrip kind of thing might work.

“Designing” with Clipart

They submitted two more designs. They were dramatically different and very complex. But worst of all: they looked like they had been assembled by copying and pasting clipart. Clipart drawn from different perspectives and in different styles. I started to get a bad feeling.

I wrote back, telling them it looked like clipart. The response:

These are victor file, but if you don’t like them we will send you more revision.

Ah, yes. I know the U.S. education system is pretty crappy right now, but that’s not the kind of English I expect to get from a native speaker. I began wondering where the company was really based.

The next logo design was closer to what I could use. It included the three icons representing books, video, and ebooks. But the style of each icon was dramatically different. I had to look at the video representation under magnification to figure out what it was. And the ebook representation was just plopped on top of its frame with no attempt to make it look as if it were emerging. And, of course, all three icons appeared to be drawn from a different perspective, so they just didn’t go well together. More clipart.

Among my comments to try to fix this one up, I said:

The second panel doesn’t look like film. Consult this link http://www.jeffjonesillustration.com/[redacted] for something closer to what I envisioned. A reel of film with a strip of film coming out.

I should note here that the image I linked to as an example is one of many copyrighted images by illustrator Jeff Jones. Mr. Jones sells the rights to his artwork for use as stock images. I did not buy this image; I was just using it as an example.

Apparently, the “designers” I’d hired thought that they could use this copyrighted image in my logo. In the next revision, that exact image, scaled to fit, was part of the logo. They’d also managed to completely misunderstand my instructions for the ebook reader image in the third panel of the logo.

It was pretty clear that:

  • They had no real design skills.
  • They had no artistic ability.
  • They heavily relied on clipart to create logos.
  • They likely didn’t understand English enough to follow instructions.

Yes, I Know that You Get What You Pay For

Now I know what you’re saying: You get what you pay for. But understand that I was willing to pay more. This isn’t the first logo I’ve had designed — the others cost more. I picked this “design” company based not on the fee but on their proposal and samples. I don’t know where the samples came from, but it’s pretty clear to me that the people I hired did not design them.

By this point, I was fed up. This had been going on for a week and I was at the point where I dreaded opening my next email from them. I wrote:

I’m trying to understand why this is so difficult for you folks. Do the people working on this project read and speak English?

First of all, you CANNOT use the film clipart I linked to as AN EXAMPLE because it is copyrighted. If I use that in my logo, I will get sued. You should KNOW this.

Second, when I said that the tablet computer representation should have writing on it like an ebook, I didn’t mean to put the word “ebook” on it. I meant using lines of fake writing so that it looked as if it were showing an ebook. Also, laying a rectangle on top of a square does not match the design elements of the first frame “book” which is emerging from the frame.

Clearly this is NOT working out. I cannot understand how you folks have gotten good reviews unless the people you worked for were satisfied by your use of clipart to create “custom” logos. I don’t need to pay someone to do that. I can do that myself.

I cannot use what you’ve created and I’m tired of going back and forth with you on this. What an incredible waste of my time. I will contact Elance directly on how to resolve this issue.

And I got online with Elance and sent them a request for help:

I put in a request for a logo design. I got a bunch of very low bids, most of them from organizations that obviously did not read what I was looking for. I picked one I thought knew what I wanted.

For the past week we have been going back and forth on this. I’m supposed to be getting a custom design and what I’m getting is cut and paste clipart. When I offered a link to a sample image on the Web, the “designer” used THAT copyrighted image — if I included that in my logo, I could get sued!

These people are obviously amateurs, have no talent, and cannot follow instructions. I want to end my contract. I am willing to pay 50% of the agreed upon fee to cover the work done. I cannot use the logo as is and will have to pay a REAL designer to come up with something I can use. Please help me resolve this so I can move on and get the logo I need.

I’m still waiting to hear back from them. Believe me, 50% is generous for the aggravation I’ve been dealing with. What I’m willing to pay for is the idea, which I helped them develop.

[Update: They’ve agreed to the 50%. I guess people like this will take any money they can get.]

Apparently Freelancers Know Better

Now when all this started going south, I tweeted:

If this Elance experience is indicative of what it’s like to work with all Elance service providers, this will be my LAST time using Elance.

A Twitter friend tweeted back:

I tried providing service on elance, but would always get undercut by clueless people from india.

So that’s what it’s all about? A web-based service that leads you to believe you’re helping out local designers who are trying to build a client base. Instead, you’re sending business overseas to “design factories” manned by clipart manipulation experts.

What do you think? Do you have any experience — good or bad — with Elance? I’d like to hear a story with a happy ending.