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ive run into a situation over here....

krossfyter

krossfyter

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 13, 2002
4,297
0
secret city
There is a good chance that I might be getting a good paying job as a graphic artist for Boeing at a base. As some of you know I have been looking for a good entry level graphic design job... to get my career started... having recently graduated. They will pay me at least 20 bucks an hour... so thats great pay man for someone on my level. The problem is I would have to work on a pc every day... since they require the person to work on windows based apps.

Should this be a problem? What would you do? Should I turn it down because of this? Its not like im getting a lot of oppurtunities for jobs paying this much in my field... and ive been looking for quite some time now. If I do find a graphic design job using macs... it doesnt pay this much starting out.


Would you work on a pc for this much money if you were me?


I dont know what to do. I guess Id be stupid to pass it up huh?



also... its not going to be a creative based graphic design job... its more grudge work... updating existing 3d, 2d models and graphics.






help
 
i'm in that situation myself at the moment. it's a struggle. pcs lack soul. i need something pretty to inspire me while i work.
 
Of course, experience is experience - if somebody is willing to pay you while you're being educated, why complain a whole heck of a lot?

This is just one small step on on the road to your final goal.

And remember, PCs include built in coffee breaks and mini vacations as the machines choke and die.
 
The PC is at work and will stay at work; but the mac is in your heart, and at home. Just do it. This just might be a stepping stone on your way to work at a place that has macs. Just pay the pipper now. In the end go with what you feel.
 
Originally posted by Sun Baked
Of course, experience is experience - if somebody is willing to pay you while you're being educated, why complain a whole heck of a lot?

This is just one small step on on the road to your final goal.

And remember, PCs include built in coffee breaks and mini vacations as the machines choke and die.
Click to expand...

This is true, whenever i want to veg out for fifteen or twenty minutes, i do something really complicated to crash my PC-- like opening a program, or moving a file. Works quite well. Then i call the IT guy and just space off. Sure i could fix the problem myself, but it's nice to yell at someone else about it :)

Take the job. You never know where it might lead. My partner uses a PC at work as well, but he's slowly wearing them down to getting him an iMac. Perhaps eventually the software will be ported, or VPC will get decent enough to use. Anyway, my point is, money is money is money. Use your nice pay to buy a TiBook, and take it to work with you :)

pnw
 
THanks for the advice guys! Very good advice... and very true.


Im soaking all this stuff in. I just want to make sure I still will be marketable after doing the grudge work on pcs only. I know how to use macs.... and I havent really used a pcs in a long time for graphic design work. Some of the apps I will have to use are : Vector Drawing applications (Micrografx Designer, CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator), Raster image editors (Adobe Photoshop, JASC Paintshop Pro)
2-D Animation (Autodesk, Animator Studio), 3-D Animation (Discreet 3D Studio Max, Maya, SoftImage), Computer-based Training Authoring applications (Mandarin, Authorware).


I only know how to use illustrator and photoshop ( extensive use) .... but they are willing to train me for anything else i need to use that i dont know how to use.



Oh and by the way... I do own a TiBook! Its my material love!
 
go for it man!!!! good luck whatever you decide to do.

and if i were you i would definitely get them to give me extra training in Maya or some other 3D app.:D
 
Count me in.

Go for it fella. A job is a job. No time to be precious. All experience is good experience. One day you may be supporting a family and a PC job may be the only one keeping them off the streets.

i_b_joshua
 
Congrats on getting such a good offer.

Take the job and be a Trojan Horse. As soon as 970-based Xserves and PMacs are released, start talking to the guys in the IT department about how great it would be to upgrade the system to a Unix-based OS. Who knows, maybe the CEO of Boeing (or you) could star in a big 'corporate switch' ad...

Good luck with the new job!
 
Just take the job. We as graphic and web designers sometimes get caught up in how superior the mac is for our work. Unfortunately the rest of the world doesnt see it that way and many, many, many companies use PC's. In fact i've been to quite a few job interviews and only one company used Macs and they only used them in the web design dept and they were old blue and white G3's and running OS 9 and using outdated software (flash 4, feehand 8, photoshop 5, etc..) i was relieved to not be offered that position believe it or not....

One place that currently tossed an offer on the table is a small place that wanted me as the head web designer, they all use PC's but agreed to let me use my tibook in addition to the PC if i wanted. So thats a plus, too bad the money just isn't right.....oh well....have to keep looking....


Point is, that we get delusional and think that just because we know the mac is superior for our work that others will also, but they do not, and you'll spend most of your career working on a PC, so might as well get used to it. :D
 
cool guys thanks. i just wanted to make sure it would be a good move if i did get offered the job. ive never really had this situation before and i wanted to see what you all would do. you know sometimes people do things that are a detrament to thier career when they think they are doing a good thing for it. i just wanted to make sure this wasnt the case for me. im new at this crap so forgive my ignorance. now i know. my view on this has been created by everyones advice and or suggestions here. i appreciate it.



so whats up with the trojan horse thing? is that what that is called? telling the IT department to switch? why do i have to wiat for 970 based x servers and pmacs?
 
The trojan horse thing was probably an analogy. I think he meant that you'd be working from the inside to get them to switch. Get it, trojan horse......see the comparison.:cool:

You don't have to wait for the "new" macs to come out. But my suggestion to you.....i'd wait till you've established yourself at the job. You can't just walk in and a month later start demanding new computers. They obviously have alot of money invested in the PC platform, both hardware and software.

You may not hate working on the PC. If they have newer ones at least they'll have some horsepower if nothing else. And if you do hate it, well then you'll enjoy coming home to your mac...
 
When you come right down to it the work you'll be doing is really with the software. There will be subtle differences in the windows and some key commands but in the end your art will look slick whether its on a PC or a Mac. Don't worry now about platform, take the opportunity to learn the software and see where it takes you.

Good luck!

D
 
Take the job...Sometimes you have to sacrifice to get the experience. Since you recently graduated, I will assume you are in your early to mid twenties. If so, you probably will be working another 40+ years, so spending a couple of years making 20 bucks an hour doing grudge work can be time well spent.
 
Re: ive run into a situation over here....

Originally posted by krossfyter


I guess Id be stupid to pass it up huh?
Click to expand...

It sounds like you have your answer. Best of luck to you.
 
My experience

I was a hardcore Apple nut like many of you here until I took a job as a 3D Animator. Yep, you guessed it, we use PC's.

I've never regretted a day of it, and it has challenged my zealot-ness as a Mac user. I love the performance of my PC, and Windows XP is actually pretty nice. No, its not OSX, but it certainly is more stable than I remember Windows ever being. And when doing 3D animation, peformance over 'niceness of OS' certainly applies.

Maya on my dual Xeon is super fast. Plus, its a lot more economic (about Half) than a dual G4 with the same Video Card. (128MB Nvidia)

Anyway, thats my experience, take it how you want. Over the last month or so, I have made some Mac users mad on these forums because of this opinion, but Im not going to lie and say that Apple meets the needs of it's 'Power-sumers.' It doesnt.

So, if you are taking this Graphic Design job--pay attention, you may just end up liking how powerful the PC can be.
 
krossfyter:

If you ever expected your first real job to be exactly what you wanted--excited, full of challenge, etc.--forget that. Generally, you start at the bottom. (Sounds like Windows)

Anyway, I'm doing temp. work on a Windows 2000 machine that reboots itself sometimes in the middle of OCR. I'm still a month-and-a-half ahead of the original project...maybe a little more since I finished up that piece a couple of weeks ago.

Windows isn't so bad although it takes more steps to get things done outside the applications. Working with Macromedia applications is a better experience on Windows, for certain. Adobe applications feel better on Macintosh. :)

Whatever happens, good luck!
 
Well I use PCs and use Photoshop in school, I find it much better on a Mac. If you think it's a good job take it, you never know If you can find another. At least you have your Mac at home... maybe you can "convert" them, :p
 
I was pretty pleased with my XP box... at first I didn't really trust it, but it's been pretty stable and very fast, so I might just move all my stuff from my mac over to it.

I wouldn't let a platform stand inbetween you and a job. perhaps it is the truly dynamic artist that can work independent of the tools at hand.

have fun :D
 
Like everyone says, take the job. But if you can, network the TiBook to the PC network, and run whatever apps are cross-platform (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) there. As long as you get the job done, they (most likely) won't complain.
 
its a Job

Dude.. its a Job... and it pays..

you have to take it.


Only in America would the computer platform you will be working on be a problem when working on a job.


Work in a coal mine for $.035 a day? risk life every day? Or starve?
 
maybe these guys just don't think you can use the same programs X-platform....kinda like bestbuy employees (apologise in advance for any flames).
I'd say take the job either way, but just mention this to them like... 6000 times, then they'll let you do it ;)


maybe
 
i could've sworn i replied to this a few days ago... ahh well

take the job. good jobs at entry level are hard to find. no one will care if your most recent job was working with pcs. you have mac experience foremost, and now you'll have pc experience. if anything, it strenghtens your knowledge base because a lot of places have some of each... so it makes you better for knowing both.

plus as duke said, once you get used to the uglier interface and different hotkeys, the art looks the same....

though the apple lcds are nicer to look at it on. ha. let us know if you get it...
 
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