This is a thing that really happened about a week and a half ago. Huge job shows up on my doorstep, practically gift-wrapped. And it’s big, it’s a lot of work. I send out a fair price, the client comes back, and we settle on something a little lower but still doable. Life is good.
A few days later I get the “guy knows a guy who’d do it for this.” And THIS turned out to be 10% of my bid. My response to this was, well, who the F is this guy bidding huge jobs that low? Was it a teenager? Because I can counter that in a conversation. No, it turned out to be a guy who makes a great living doing something completely unrelated, and just does crap like this on the side to make extra money for ipods or something. Crap Like This being the thing I make a living on.
And I wrote on my page: “I lost a job to someone who bid 10% of my price and in walked a man 10% of my size.”
Nate Voss is a designer, illustrator, talkshow host and design journalist. Working in Omaha since 2001, Nate served four years on the Board of Directors for 
Donovan oversees all creative development at
Did they not tell you freshman year of college that you were just getting yourself into a glorified hobby?
Everyone’s second occupation is graphic design. C’mon, man!
/pat-on-back
Fun tip: my ReCaptcha words are city unmanned.