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April 18, 2012
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I turned on the radio on my way home, and the first thing I heard was a caller complaining about how violated he felt because his potential employer asked to log into his Facebook account.  "They are disrupting the privacy of me and my friends," he said sadly, "I couldn't believe they were doing this."  No sh*t.  Apparently companies are doing this and people actually complied... not without complaints, but they forked over their personal information and private life because they needed the job.

My first reaction is to feel incredulous that in a country of freedom, some people have so little of it.  I knew I would never put up that crap, and I felt sorry for people who have to.  Then I began to understand the answer to a question I've been asking myself for a long time now: what's my biggest motivation?

This may sound strange, but it's not "art" by itself.  I enjoy doing art at times but it can be equally frustrating, and I care a lot more about improving my personal craft than somehow helping the entire art world progress.  It's not really money, either.  Beyond paying bills and buying games, I don't have the mental maturity to fully appreciate money, and I do unpaid personal work all the time.  Listening to the radio last night, I realized that my major motivation is freedom.  It's not the freedom to harm others, or the freedom to get whatever I want.  It's the freedom to stare at the interviewer who's asking for my facebook password with wide eyes, laugh, and then walk out.  On a grander level, it's the freedom to choose what projects I want to work on, what kind of cultures I'd like to work in, and what kind of roles do I play.

By a stroke of incredible luck, I rolled the dice and ended up in an almost perfect scenario.  The world is ever-changing, though.  When the time to roll the dice comes again, my personal abilities will become my plus modifier, allowing me more choices in my action.  I work for a lot of things, but freedom is the one long-term goal that keeps me going.
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:iconnightblue-art:
~Nightblue-art Apr 18, 2012  Professional Digital Artist
Part of the system is they trained people (I included) to be extremely uncomfortable with naming names and talking about salaries what not :) System wins.
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:iconcaseyd2k:
~CaseyD2K Apr 18, 2012  Professional Digital Artist
If there is anything I have learned while working in the industry is that they need us as much as we need them. It may seem like most employers have the advantage over the employee but that is not true. In order for a company to be successful they need to hire honest hard working employees who are willing to go the extra mile to see a product or business succeed. When people just outright hire cannon-fodder to fill seats and get paid beans that's when companies start to tank. Employees should never sell themselves short on value, especially when they have a lot to offer.
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:iconnightblue-art:
~Nightblue-art Apr 18, 2012  Professional Digital Artist
Exactly, and lucky for us the individual values of each artist is more visible than many other professions :)
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:iconvanshira:
~Vanshira Apr 18, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
The joys of capitalism. It's not the government that owns you, it's your employer. I've tried the unemployment thing before, and if my current employer asked for my Facebook password on pain of being fired, I would hand it the hell over rather than have to look for another job.
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:iconnightblue-art:
~Nightblue-art Apr 18, 2012  Professional Digital Artist
yeah I totally see why he did it and why you would do it. Not being forced to put up with BS employer is a big thing for me, and I'm hoping that i'll be able to be my own person as a digital craftsman instead of being completely owned by a company.
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:iconvanshira:
~Vanshira Apr 18, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
Not being forced to put up with BS from your employer is sadly a privilege that few enjoy in this day and age. :/ It doesn't help that I have a pretty narrow specialty within a field that's not too wide to begin with.
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