Natural beauty, inspirational nature

Chapter 31 Age and Sex Discrimination
A good guy doesn't suffer from immediate losses, so I apparently agreed to continue working for him, and secretly began to look for another company.

City S is really big. For young people, this is a city where as long as you are good enough and strong enough, there will be no shortage of opportunities for development, but I privately feel that their requirements for graphic designers are already outrageously high. the point.

If your skills are average and you don't have a few brushes, it will be difficult for you to gain a foothold here.Because the salary level here really matches your ability, and the price is high. People with a monthly salary of less than [-] and [-], [-], or [-] to [-] a month are not bad in second-tier cities, but in first-tier cities After deducting the basic expenses of food, housing and transportation, there is not much left.

So there are many friends who have been struggling in S city for a year and a half and finally couldn't make it and went back to their hometown to find another job.

Another reality that cannot be ignored is that with the rapid rise of the Internet industry, people's daily life (food, clothing, housing and transportation) is increasingly dependent on the Internet.Information consultation, entertainment games, and shopping all require the support of the Internet.

And there is a prerequisite for online consumption: whether it is the tangible material world or the intangible spiritual world, if you want to display it externally on the Internet and realize human-computer interaction, you must first allow people to intuitively see a piece of vivid information. Photos, attractive advertisement images, and real images and videos also require convenient and easy-to-operate APPs, and then consumers can easily choose what they like by just moving their fingers.

And all these visual products that can be directly displayed on mobile phones or computers require designers to stay up all night to think about ideas, draw sketches, and then use computer software to draw and outline them bit by bit with the mouse.

In the past, as long as graphic designers knew professional and basic graphic design software such as PHOTOSHOP, ILLUSTRATOR, and CORELDRAW, and added their own inspiration and creativity, they could basically cope with the promotional design of various indoor and outdoor advertisements of enterprises.

But not anymore, most companies’ definition of a graphic designer has begun to stretch without a bottom line.The reason why there is no bottom line is because there are many types of design itself. There is a huge difference between artistic design and industrial design, and advertising graphic design and decoration graphic design are also irrelevant. However, most companies Many headhunters or HR managers, including the boss themselves, are non-professionals. They only understand the concept of graphic design literally. They require you to not only be able to take pictures, do video editing, but also understand animation special effects, and more importantly, be able to design websites and packaging. , album design, small program design, website background programming code, you also need to be able to operate a mobile phone official account, and it is best that you can write advertising copywriting and advertising soft articles yourself.

As far as these design types are concerned, it takes me a long time to talk about them, not to mention the actual production in reality. Few designers can meet all the above requirements at the same time. Even if there are, the salary level offered by the other party is far from Lower than the commercial value that these positions themselves can realize.

An old designer like me who has worked for more than ten years can only basically meet 60% of the application requirements.Moreover, one person with multiple positions will inevitably invest more time and energy in the work, long-term high-intensity work, staying up late and working overtime are actually exchanging youth and life for money.

As early as when I applied for the art design major, our art teacher said that students who want to apply for the design major should pay attention. Designers also eat "youth food" to a certain extent, and design is very brain-intensive. For physical strength, brain power means that you need to have a steady stream of creative ideas, and physical strength means that you need to sit in front of the computer all the time in order to turn ideas into reality.

Because in everyone's inherent thinking and impression, once a person passes 30, not only will his physical strength and energy become worse than before, but the enthusiasm and spark of creativity will become less active and shine with age.This point was also brutally verified during the interview process.

It’s not that I’m 35 years old, I’m really aging as our teacher said, my creative thinking is stagnant, and it’s not that my physical strength has degenerated and I can’t stay up late at night. On the contrary, I am uncharacteristically more creative than the post-90s. Can withstand loneliness, but also withstand high-intensity overtime pressure.

But the reality is that basically no interviewer believes that a 30+ graphic designer born in the 80s can still maintain passion and dreams, is still full of energy, and can accept any challenge.

What makes me even more uncomfortable is that the HR manager will always take the trouble to ask me:
"Are you married? Do you have any children? You are a bit embarrassing at this age. Our position is full of work intensity and pressure. Compared with those born in the 80s, we hope to inject more fresh young blood into the company, and more I hope boys can be recruited to fill this vacancy. Boys have better physical strength, stress resistance and job stability.”

"Is Miss Cheng divorced? It's okay. Divorce is not a shameful thing now. Would you mind telling me the reason? Do you have a boyfriend now? If you have a boyfriend and consider remarrying, will you still have children?"

"I'm sorry, because of your age, I don't think it's suitable for this position in our company. We have met many girls of marriageable age, and they became pregnant and had children not long after they came to work. This is very embarrassing. The company You can’t open skylights for jobs. So sorry, we prefer to find married people with children, and you were not accepted.”

After a few rounds like this, I was a little hit by reality.I found that I didn't lose in ability, but in gender, and in age!

How can I be willing?The greatest hostility towards women in this society is that because you are a woman, we are afraid that you will get pregnant at any time and delay your work; because you are a woman, we think you are weak and not as strong as a man; No matter how young you are, I think you are not good enough, you can't do it!
So just because I'm a woman and I'm at the age of [-], I deserve to be unable to even get an offer for a good job I like?Often at this time, I would curse silently in my heart: Ma De, the biggest lie in the world is "You can't do it".

My inner OS is:
"My mother is not yet seventy or eighty years old. Jiang Ziya is so old that her temples are gray, and she was selected by the emperor and Lao Tzu. She has achieved a great career as a prime minister. She is also a human being. Just because I am a woman, you engage in blatant sexism. Age discrimination."

"What's the difference between you guys and those male chauvinists in the marriage and love market? Regardless of whether they are 30+, 40+, 50+, or 60+, they will always only like young women in their 20s, and treat women in their 30s Seeing it as old and decrepit, cheap goods that no one wants, if you look down on people like this, one day you will all regret it!"

My mother asked me how the interview was going, and I said with a depressed face: "I haven't passed it again. They are worried that I may find someone to have a child soon, and they think I am too old."

I thought my mother would sympathize with me to some extent, but after listening to her, she replied thoughtfully: "You may really not be good at your age."

I was very upset when I heard it, and I said: "Mom, I don't care what others say, why do you look down on your daughter like the world. Your daughter is different from ordinary girls. Even at this age, her design ability is still poor. , The ability to withstand stress is not built. You forget that I was busy taking care of you some time ago, and I was busy creating design drafts until midnight every night. You can't underestimate me."

Mom said: "Okay, okay, okay, I don't underestimate you. But now the interviewer doesn't believe you. You are too honest a child. We can't tell the truth if you have a baby. It's okay to lie at this time. There is nothing wrong with that."

I said: "I know, I have already thought about it, I decided that if I have a job interview with a big company next time, if I ask if I have children, I will never say that I am divorced and have no children. Instead, I have children, children 6 I'm old, and my parents usually take it with me."

My mother said: "This is successful. But you have to think about it, what is the 6-year-old child? Then the personnel will probably ask about the zodiac sign and the like. If you make a mistake, don't you have to wear it?"

After I heard it, I laughed out loud. My mother really thought about it thoroughly, even thinking about the child's zodiac.The "abnormal" personnel can ask any super-class questions.

In this way, I interviewed five or six companies in S City in November, but all ended in failure, because the turnover rate is very low near the end of the year. Even if there is a need to change jobs, everyone tends to wait until the end of the year to get the year-end bonus. Then consider the long term.Therefore, it is very difficult to find a good work unit in the short term.

But there are still two bosses who showed great interest in me. Unfortunately, their personnel informed me: Miss Cheng, our boss is very satisfied with your qualifications and interview performance, but there is currently no shortage of people for this position. , the designer may have to return to his hometown next year, so we hope you can wait patiently for our notice.

It's not my style to wait at home every day and let work come to me. I started to rely on my accumulated advertising network resources in the past to accept some scattered advertising design orders.

"Go to hell, you don't think highly of me, I take good care of myself, at worst I will do it myself", I secretly struggled in my heart, cheering myself up, and the "small universe" in my body burned up.

So, taking advantage of this enthusiasm for starting a business, I registered a graphic design studio in my hometown, named "Shiyin·Qingxian".

This is the pen name I have used since I was in college. When I was searching on the Internet, no one had ever taken such a unique and pleasant name. It fits my usual "poetic and picturesque" romantic temperament.

When the studio was first established, I did receive some scattered small orders, all of which were hundreds of yuan, but every time I received a small order recommended to me by a former colleague, I was in a bad mood. They are all very excited. I treat every small order as a big one, and carefully design it for customers until they are satisfied.

Another advantage of doing it myself is that I work at home, so I can take care of my mother's daily life while picking up work.

At this time, my mother's surgery date was also approaching, and I managed to survive the two-week waiting period before the operation. I accompanied my mother and rushed from Qidong to S City with luggage, preparing to be hospitalized for surgery.

As a result, the doctor did not show up at the hospital on the agreed date, and the nurse was called temporarily to inform us that he worked in two different hospitals in S city from time to time, one of which was a public hospital and the other was a private hospital.

The public hospital he was talking about was the hospital where we went to see a doctor because we had heard about it for a long time.It was so overcrowded that there was no room for a bed.If you go to a private hospital, you can go there in a week, and the bed and surgery will be arranged immediately.

But we were almost dizzy after hearing this. Since we had made an appointment with the doctor the day before for surgery the next day, we rushed to City S in the afternoon under heavy rain. My mother and I lost our way in order to find the hotel we had booked online. Running after the bus in the rain, my whole body was drenched by the rain.

On the second day, there was a long line of old doctors waiting eagerly, finally seeing the old doctor again, only to hear such bad news that not only the operation would be postponed for another week, but also need to be transferred to another famous doctor. Going to an unknown private hospital, the mood at that time was really like riding a roller coaster, suspended in mid-air for a while, and fell to the bottom of the valley in an instant.

In desperation, my mother finally decided to give up the operation in S City and go back to her hometown of N City Affiliated Hospital for surgery.Because at least there is an acquaintance, sister Xiaowei, who is there to take care of her at critical moments.

(End of this chapter)