How would you describe your job to a complete stranger?

I’ve often wondered – and struggled – to come up with a good answer myself. Here at PowerServe we’re all multi-taskers. One moment I’m a Designer, another I’m a Creative Director, another I am a Project Manager of sorts. We all wear many hats, and that’s one of the cool things about PowerServe: you encounter new things every day.

• I’m a web designer.
• I’m a graphic designer.
• I design.
• I make things pretty to look at and easy to use.
• I help businesses improve their business.
• I get paid to play.
• I help others to grow as designers and coders.
• I meticulously write valid markup.

I think my favorite would have to be “I get paid to play.” Jobs aren’t supposed to be fun, right? It wouldn’t be called “work” otherwise. So I feel rather blessed to have a job where I feel like everytime I’m creating a site for a client in Photoshop, or messing with code in Dreamweaver, I’m playing.

A recent conversation I had with a friend and former coworker gave me better insight on how to describe what it is that I – and others in my profession – do. It’s easy to tell someone you design websites or business cards. Most people get that. But many people trivialize our profession because the tools to make websites or business cards or whatever are available to anyone, regardless of their level of skill. Would you trust the maintenance or repair of your car to just anybody? Of course not. You might save a few dollars by going to Mechanic A, but if he doesn’t fix your car correctly, it could end up costing you more money to repair your car when you bring it to Mechanic B. Hindsight is 20-20. I get that.

Website design and development is like working on a car. A really beautiful car that is ugly under the hood isn’t going to be winning the Indy 500 anytime soon. An ugly that runs like a charm is going to do well. How else do you expect sites like CraigsList to prosper?

Anyway, I digress. How would you describe your job?