Don’t ignore minor red flags

^07-04-2024

One day, while still working at a print-shop, a lady came in to print customized church envelopes. I noticed she was having challenges with her graphics designer who was suppose to send the designs to be printed on the envelopes. The designer was not responding quickly, the lady was chasing a deadline, the church envelopes must be printed today, it's Sunday tomorrow. The lady was furious.

As a designer I saw an opportunity. I gave her my number and let her know that next time when she wants a design I’ll help her.

She called me the next day. Gave me work to do. I did the work. I got paid. More work followed; poster designs, sticker designs, calenders and more.

However, there was a common trend in all the projects she gave me; I was always suppose to rush. I was given a 24hr – 48hr deadline to complete design work. And I overlooked this ‘hurry’ red flag.

Until, one day, when I had to design a poster for her; their church was hosting a revival. They needed the poster ASAP for advertising. The revival was starting in 3 days. I quickly designed version 1, sent it to her, got her feedback, applied the corrections sent version 2 back to her and went to sleep, it was late.

I woke up in the morning, found a bunch of missed calls. I checked my WhatsApp, found even more corrections to apply to the poster. I tried calling her, she could not pickup. I added those corrections, sent version 3 back to her. And continued with my day.

The hours went by, I did not hear form her. A day went by, still nothing from her, she hasn’t responded to my text.

I realized that, maybe what they did to their first designer has befall me; being ditched, mid-project, for another designer, because I could not deliver in ( their obviously unreasonable ) time.

I decided to check their Facebook page to see if they uploaded the design I sent them. No! There was another poster, designed by another person. Wait! It means they decided to get another designer, midnight, to design a poster for them in less than 5 hours.

This is the exact same story between me and their previous designer.

Conclusion

Change is hard. Repeated actions become habits. Maybe the previous designer was not the bad guy. Maybe the lady had developed a habit of starting projects very late. Don’t ignore minor red flags.