In-House Designers: 37 Ways to Get Fired

In the book “The Corporate Creative,” Andy Epstein offers tactics for thriving in an in-house design environment. He lays out a tongue-in-cheek list of ways for an in-house designer to get fired in the hopes that you’ll not try them.

Illustration by Aleks Sennwald www.senvald.com

Undoubtedly, the quality of your creative problem-solving skills, insights and final deliverables are the primary determinants of your professional success. Equally important in the corporate setting, though, are your communication, interpersonal and collaborative skills, as well as your attitude, temperament and mindset. I can recall times I’ve helplessly watched excellent creatives crash and burn because they didn’t practice proper business and personal etiquette. Some were incapable of understanding the rules, some were dead set against following the rules and some just didn’t care. It’s critical to understand that how you choose (or not) to conduct yourself in your relationships with your clients, peers and companies is more than just greasing the wheels of corporate politics—those behaviors are actually essential to the process of creating effectively designed materials for your company.

Conversely, there are times when corporate policies can compromise your and your team’s creativity, productivity, integrity and even humanity. Sometimes logic and simple decency buckle under the quest for efficiency (read: standardization) or legal priorities of companies. It can feel as if you’ve walked through Alice’s looking-glass and the very behaviors and practices that should be rewarded or condemned become inverted. At that point, it’s best to push back and assert yourself even if it means confrontation and possible dismissal. No job, no position, no title is worth giving up your ideals and beliefs.

That being said, there are ways to stand up for what you believe in that are effective, and there are ways that are potentially self-destructive. Some ways will empower you to transform yourself, your colleagues and your work environment. Others will piss off your peers and upper management and, at best, get you fired, or at worst, leave you working in a hostile environment. The aim of this article is to offer strategies and tactics that will support you in the former and help you avoid the latter. To do that, I’m serving up ways to get fired in the hopes that you’ll not try these at work. (However, if you’re truly miserable and want to get out, by all means give them a try.)

Are You A Corporate Creative? Check out Andy Epstein’s book that’s written just with you in mind.