Nearly everybody has a rough time when they get out of college, searching for that first job. Reality can be a cold, wet towel in the face. Job interviews are tough, although they do tend to get a little easier as time goes on.

I think there are some areas of Real Life that are a little harder for artists than they are for the rest of the world. Don't worry, I'm not taking some airy-fairy-artists-are-sensitive-souls left turn on you here. I'm talking about respect and values.

Would anyone ever expect a lawyer or an accountant to work for free? I'm not talking pro bono cases here, I'm talking about a potential client that says, "Do the work. If I like it, I'll pay for it." (And they don't mean they'll pay for it today, either.) I don't think this happens to many teachers, doctors, or other professional. It's happened to every single artist I know.

To that end, I'd like to devote this part of my site to Artist's Horror Stories. I want real I-had-the-job (or interview)-from-hell stories. I won't use any real company names, but I would like the stories to be true.

I'll start it off with what happened to a woman I knew in art school. She answered a job posting for an artist, and went to the interview, which took place in a house. It turned out that the man who had posted the job needed about four pages of figure drawings done. He offered the artist ten dollars. She told him that ten dollars was not enough. He left the room, and returned with some shampoo and a piece of cheese. He asked if ten dollars plus the shampoo and cheese would be enough for the sketches.

Do you have a Horror Story to share? Email your story here

As a freelance artist I understand that somewhat unreasonable deadlines are a part of the territory, but one case was just too much. I had chosen to freelance because I could stay home with our lovely four pre-schoolers. One morning about 9:00 I received a call from a client who I worked with on several jobs. He had asked if I would be available for full-time employment, so I had spent some time explaining my situation and why I was not interested in being employed outside our home. At that time he indicated that they would not be interested in working further with someone who would not be willing to sacrifice more for their company, so I was very suprised to hear from him. He apoligized for his earlier comments and asked if I would be interested in taking a free-lance job. I said possibly. He asked if I could be to his office by 10:00 that morning as the job would need to go out to the printers that afternoon (remember I have 4 pre-schoolers). Before I could say anything he made a comment that ended the conversation immediately. His comment was "I know this won't be a problem for you, you don't do anything, you're just a stay-at-home-mom". I hung up on him.

I am a calligrapher with 20+ years in the freelance field. Most jobs are envelopes and the ocassional chart (astronomical a speciality) or quotations. The real horror comes from seating charts at weddings, bar mitzvahs, etc. Even with a specified cut-off date and demands for names PRINTED, there always seems to be that last minute Aunt from Minnesota that just HAS to be seated at the main table. Layout goes out the window and crummy looking charts result. I hate it, even if the client says it's wonderful. Still, there seems to be no way to solve this problem. Thanks for listening.

As a graphic designer for the Human Resources organization in a very large computer company (yep, that one), I was used to requests that were unreasonable, both in the type of artwork wanted as well as the short turnaround time expected. This story, however, is the epitome to me of the type of environment that graphic designers can expect in companies that attempt to set up a "graphic resource department" on a tight budget.

I was asked to create a poster by the department that handles the appraisal process for employee performance. They wanted something approximately 36 inches high by 40 wide, and the main theme was a warning that if employees didn't complete the steps necessary in the appraisal process that they might not get their end-of-year bonuses.

At their request I created a prototye consisting of a silhouette figure stepping from floating rock to floating rock to reach the mainland - this was some of my best work to date and I was quite proud of it; it was imaginative, VERY eye catching, put the message across beautifully and even incorporated the excessive amount of text requested without over-burdening the design.

Management loved it, everything seemed set and commitments were made. Then the design was faxed to upper-level management THREE DAYS before it was due in the service bureau for filming. Upper-level management decided the design was too scary - the floating rocks were too jagged, could I smooth them over? After complying with their request I was bombarded with a series of requests from different sources, each wanting their own changes. The upshot was that ONE DAY before the poster was due to be filmed, I was asked to produce three more and DIFFERENT poster concepts (other than the one I had already done) for review. All three were turned down as well. I was asked to design a poster based on a "puzzle" concept that someone's secretary had. By this time I was a trifle frustrated, and while I did as good a job as I could in the time left (four hours!), I cast it in the most poisonous and conflicting colors I could select (hot pink, mauve and purple). Of course, they loved it. That poster is now all over the company, and the director of the organization I work for has plastered it all over the building I work in. I see this poster every single day of my working life, and don't know whether to laugh or cry......

When I started my graphic design firm many years ago, not many women were in the field as independent businesses. I went to the bank where my husband and I had our joint chedking account and asked to set up a business checking account in my business's name. My request was refused because my husband's name would be required on the new account. That was in 1974 and women have since been protected against such policies by law.

What did I do in 1974? I went across the street to the competitor bank which was very accommodating to my business and the relationship lasted for many years.

I owned a typesetting company and also a graphic design firm for many years. On one occasion a potential client phoned to discuss a project their sizeable real estate firm would require. I confirmed that the nature of our services could include both professional design and professional typesetting. We set an appointment to meet at their office. I arrived on time at the 40th floor office in a shiny new office tower. However after waiting 30 minutes I inquired of the receptionist if the appointment should be rescheduled at another time. She checked with my potential client and said "No, please wait. She is coming." After waiting 50 minutes, my potential client appeared and sat down next to me on a couch in the lobby, but I suggested we proceed to the nearby conference room. I was asked to show examples of previous work so she could see my experience and ability. Satisfied, she began to describe a simple Christmas card project and asked the price to typeset it, indicating that the budget was constrained to not more than $25. She expected the design to be free. When I asked about the future of the larger projects alluded to by phone, it was clear they were not real projects and no budget had been allocated for them. As I left the shiny office tower, I paid $5.50 for parking my car and never returned to that company again.

I've been working for a pharmaceutical company as their graphics illustrator for 5 years now. Since the beginning I was not given enough space to store the art work I created for them or my own personal art which was too big for floppies or my tiny hard drive. The solution was to get me a SyQuest external drive and platters.

Okay, these have worked successfully for years until 20 days ago - I had been getting weird messages about 2 of the platters, so I ordered three new ones to load everything onto and all my current work. The nightmare that occurred was horrible! I downloaded not only put my personal art to these platters but my working files too and all three failed along with the original platters within 13 days of each other! I lost everything!!

I'm currently arguing with SyQuest over recovering the data that was lost but to no avail!

Anyway, I personally ordered a zip drive today, plus a ten pack of disks to backup all of my platters - never again!

Lesson learned: Optical is the only way to go; more stable, less chance for corruption going through x-ray at airports, hold more at a lesser cost for the drive itself and the disks and lighter! I should have done this months ago .

I'm graduating this year from a Fine Art program, and this happened to me last summer.

A local restaurant was opening downtown with a 50's theme, and they wanted someone to do a cliche mural like all those kinds of restaurants have - a group of famous figures standing around like they all know each other, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, you get the idea. They offered a lower-than-reasonable commision for the job, but hey, I was desperate for work. They said it had to be done within a week, since the restaurant was opening on the first of the next month. So I went to the library, and spent several hours gathering as many photos of the Hollywood scene as I could, then spent the next three days projecting and rendering them on their walls.

I had finished the largest of the walls, a movie set where the kissing scene from Casablanca was being acted out, as oodles of stars looked on from the wings. It was masterfully arranged. Then on the fourth day, before I arrived, a work crew had come in and cut a big hole in the wall between the aisle and the kitchen - to install a counter where the wait staff would access the orders. Well, their hole basically cut Humprey off at the torso, and several of the famous onlookers were decapitated. It was a disaster, and I was livid.

The managers of the restaurant insisted that I design a new mural, and wouldn't change the amount of payment we had agreed on. Needless to say, I told them to shove it, and eventually someone must have come in and covered my work with primer, because it's gone, and the restaurant now has a nice set of framing-store posters with those neon fixtures in them. How appropriate.

For two years after I got out of art school, I was the hardest-working unemployed children's book illustrator out there. One of the things I've learned is that if there's anything worse than not getting a job, it's getting the wrong job.

One of the tools I used to search for children's book work was a book that listed children's book publishers, and the type of artist's work the publishers were interested in, etc. One of the publishers listed in the book that I sent my work to wanted to publish some of my black and white work. I was, of course, thrilled. I was thrilled until I looked at the sample of the publication that my artwork would be published in.

Personally, I think most pornography is rather silly and pathetic. But this was really badly drawn pornography. And I didn't think that while trying to break into the children's book field my first publishing credit should be Hot, Wet and Wild (or whatever the publication was called, I've since blocked it out.)

Needless to say, I wrote the publisher, and my work was never published. Since then I have discovered computers and never looked back.

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