S/O of asking favors from creative professionals

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to get comfortable saying no. Stop making it personal. Just say, I wish I could help, I just don't have the bandwidth. You do creative work - it's still work.

I know!! That’s why I liked the posters in the other thread saying that Op needed to respect her friend’s boundaries even if she didn’t understand them. How do you get better at saying no? Partly it’s a fear of outcomes like exactly the one in the other thread—that if you say no to the favor the other person will take it as a rejection/sign you don’t feel the same degree of closeness and withdraw their own kindnesses. This is where I feel like socialization has really screwed women. We’ve been socialized to be so agreeable that we sometimes interpret healthy boundaries as being dismissal/lack of reciprocity etc. Is this partly bc we say yes so often when we’d rather say no that we’re resentful when others don’t over extend themselves in the same ways?

Yes.

-Recovering first born, tall girl, goody-goody, who was also protestive.

[Anonymous]

I charge everyone the same price. I might add value for friends or offer help, but anyone that books my time is charged. That goes for consults as well. I often end up giving away a ton, but they don’t know that going in. Some will hire me, other keep looking for a deal. That tells me enough.

[Anonymous]

I think that people constantly devalue visual work and it’s to the great detriment of society. Americans are mostly visually illiterate and it’s disturbing. I mean, just look at architecture trends. What is this glass turd amazon is building? Why do people think the apartment buildings on 14th St corridor look fine but somehow brutalism is the enemy? Why do people buy Kincaid paintings and brown bags with beige logos on them? We kill everything good with design by committee. And we literally kill people because a designer couldn’t properly lay out a ballot or street signs or whatever. Then we act like visually literacy is a “nice to have” not a “must have.”

[Anonymous]

PP from rant above. I think I had a point and it may have been that because people can’t discern good from bad anymore, or even functional from nonsensical, that those of us who actually offer stellar skills are lumped in with all the bad designers, photographers, artists, whatever. Then everyone thinks those services should be cheap because they don’t care if it’s bad.

God I could go on and on about the crap we put up with from clients. From having to take spouse’s input to people who will say that they won’t pay for changes but you can put your name on the piece for exposure.