i work for lullaby

Working for a company that completely ignores your creative ideas is terrible. One of the worst jobs I had (creatively) was working for an educational publishing company with offices in Central Florida.

I remember giving a presentation about an e-curriculum for K-6 textbooks, knowing that not only did no one care about technology – but they would do nothing to implement the ideas. They were much happier outsourcing the creativity and the tech work to an outside company...that they paid more than they would have internally.

But for whatever reason, they didn't trust internal voices.

I remember Paul Boag talking about this – can't remember if it's in his Freelance Course or his Treehouse Friends interview – about getting hired as a web consultant for site/feature redesigns – and the first thing he does is talk to the guys in their tech department and ask them what creative ideas they have that they've never been able to implement.

While it's a great tip for someone planning a career as a web consultant, it's sad that it sometimes takes a consultant to implement good ideas.

I'm so sorry about your current job :( The thing that makes me SO FREAKING EXCITED to work on our Mission at Treehouse is the fact that if you up your game in Web Design, Dev or Mobile, there are tons of jobs where you can be creative and empowered. Don't give up!

Absolutely. This is one reason why personal projects and open source can be so great for programmers. It will give you the chance to work on things you are very interested in. Those projects can also lead to much better jobs with more forward thinking companies. In fact, it's probably the single most important thing you can do for your portfolio in many cases.

I can relate. Two things I can advice on, one of which is what Paul just said. Work on personal projects; things you love to work on. Collaborate if you can, build a portfolio whether you are a designer or developer.

The second is to break this cycle, you're going to have probably the busiest and hardest year of your life. I absolutely respect that you get up and go to a job you hate to keep a roof over your family. I also want to encourage you to work very hard on extra side work and projects you enjoy doing around your full time gig. That's why I said it's going to be the busiest and hardest. You'll likely be putting in 80-100 hour weeks between working for your company, and working for your yourself. But eventually, you'll start moving enough things that you'll be able to leave your lullaby job and start doing whatever it is you love doing, and get paid to do so. The short term sacrifice will be worth it in the scope of your life. It takes an extraordinary amount of effort for an object to break out of an orbit, and that's no different here. Break the orbit of this crap job, do what you love, and have a solid and reliable income doing it. You'll probably make a lot more money doing what you love too, cause you'll be better at it. You just gotta get your wife on board.

thank you for your words both of you. i an in a cyclical orbit continually landing jobs like this. my biggest question is should i keep trying to introduce everything i learn here when i get shut down everytime or just save my creative juice for freelance. i am talking to corporate today about some of my ideas. the sad thing is that they just cut my hours and i am barely making ends meet. strangely this hour cut has arrived so close to our meeting. anyway we'll see how it goes today.

just had my meeting. you are right new ideas may be too much at this time.

Thank you Ryan! I see the jobs and know that I have a bright future in web development. I get more confident with every lesson. Thank you for all that you guys and gals do

Personal Projects are definitely the way to go, if you are lacking in projects attend local dev and design meetups meet your peers and lend a hand. Attend a hackaton it's great place to learn and create projects. Be involved with and understanding your community of peers will also help with finding those jobs that will enable you to be creative and try new things.

Hey Kahlil, i just stumbled upon your post and hope your situation changed for the better since you posted it. Several years ago in my old company I´ve been in the same situation and was about to give up my job. The my main issue is that your boss(es) are afraid, afraid of two things: The Internet (they just don´t know much and fear what they don´t know) The possible extra workload, that would come if they had to "learn" the internet.

So they stick to the old fashioned way of print marketing and stuff. Now its your turn: Just not tell them that online marketing is important, but feed their needs. The want to make more revenue, decrease marketing cost, better targeting etc. Tell them that online marketing does exactly THAT and that YOU can do that and you are keeping the work away from them, consult them and pretty much comfort them if they are feeling helpless. You have to sell yourself and sell your ideas. Do it the same way, as if you would sell a product. First get to know the other persons needs or issues and then tell them how you are just helping them with exactly that. Always come up with solutions that make them stay in the comfort zone.

If you still cannot convince them to do the right things, start some side projects. Maybe something is growing out of it and you don´t have to "search" a new job.

I´m sure you will do the right things.

wait.. so lullaby seriosly exist? i am amazed i tough it was part of the fiction on the videos.

sure it does exist. there are lots of lullaby companies out there. but yes it is fiction ;-)

Hey Khalil, after almost half a year, is everything going like you planned?