This time last Friday, I couldn't have told you (with a straight face) that I knew how to complete a single productive action using my computer. That is unless you consider obsessively checking Facebook "productive."
But a week has passed now, and I am slowly dipping my toes into the basics of web design. In said week, I've learned how to do all manner of things: how to create a website from a working template using WordPress; how to insert, resize, and customize images; how to link pages together; and far more.
At Austin Web and Design, we work at a dizzying speed, but never at the cost of quality. Our head honcho, Isaac Simon, spends a fat chunk of each and every day on the phone with our clients to ensure that the results we deliver meet (if not exceed) their exact specifications.
Like last week, I am still enamored with the wonders of watching a website come together before my eyes. I occasionally and abruptly disrupt our focused work environment with ourbursts of "YES!" or "BOOM!" or "SHAZAAAM!"
I think I'm growing on my cohorts. Either that, or their Zenlike patience with me has collapsed into a sort of vacant and polite stare while they help me troubleshoot my beginner-level obstacles. At any rate, there's no doubt that the three of us are working small miracles here in our cozy Seattle work space.
Connor, Isaac's 8-year-old son, continues to punctuate the progress of our projects with his new discoveries and enthusiasms. Yesterday, for example, he decided that he was going to construct a tunnel. And so Isaac's wife Brenda came home to find a sizable hole in their yard. And while at times Connor's 20-questions sessions are eclipsed by the urgency of a given client's site construction, we always appreciate his spontaneous insights and interests.
I myself have been working furiously on a site for an Austin painting company called Tex Painting, plugging in and arranging content, and occasionally doing some light copy editing. That project is nearly complete now (I think), which is is fine, because there are several more projects on the horizon.
Finishing up a project is something like saying goodbye to an old lover; you remember the struggles and the suffering as clearly as the "hell yeah" moments, and the finality of it all creates an odd sense of peace within. It's as though you've successfully raised a gorgeous and talented child, and can now tearfully send them on their way into the big scary world. There's a certain sense of pride.
And that's just what we're all about here at Austin Web and Design. We take pride in every site we create, and share genuine moments of celebration when we've finally turned a given client's vision into a reality. While our clients' customers only see the finished product, we at Austin Web and Design know intimately what went into creating that seamless and elegant page, and we're extremely content being the folks behind the scenes who made it happen.
And so while week one has been intensive, it's also been enlightening, and I can't wait to learn about all of the magical and mysterious site creation tricks I'll start to hone next week. There's something empowering about working here, perhaps because I can track our company's progress (as well as my own) in measures of leaps and bounds.
Gone are the mundane days of foot-shuffling post-college professions. Hello to an opportunity that I dare already call a "career." That is the debt I owe to my supremely patient and knowledgeable co-creators here at Austin Web and Design--but don't tell them I said so, or I'll be buying the beers after work next Friday.
