The desire to make things work for you

The Mother still has this habit of asking me about adobe illustrator, a software that she uses regularly at work. To her, since I know adobe photoshop, then I must know how to operate illustrator.

Which is a strange concept.

I think I blogged about this before, how it is ridiculous to associate two softwares based on the fact that they are released by the same company. I mean, I shouldn't necessary know excel if I know powerpoint, even if they are both products of microsoft.

And so today, I have the luxury to leave work pretty much on time, and reached home early enough to do a little dance of joy. And immediately she have to bombard me with her queries, as though I am helpdesk itself.

I told her since I dont know this software, she should instead find someone who is well-versed enough to answers her questions, and direct all questions there!

She say the only person she knows who can manipulate this software with no trouble is a vendor, who is often busy, and possibly cant answer her questions in time.

"Bribe." I told her.

Treat this person more meals, treat this person with more kopi breaks. When you call this person on the phone, make sure you ask if he is free enough to answer one question, and dont push your luck. If he is free enough to answer, ensure your query is structured simply and precisely.

She whine and said mutter that it is easy for me to say, since I know photoshop. I told her that even if we dont use this skill as a guideline, there's hundred of other skills that I had zero information to begin with, but I found ways to make things work for me.

For example, when I first joined ID, I know nuts about mechanical and electrical specifications. I had to make sure my m&e colleagues like me enough to not go crazy whenever I raise a question. When I am on site, I will greet them before they greet me, which to them is surprising because designers are well-known for being arrogant.

And if my other designers colleagues refused to take their calls, or delay sending out drawings to them while asking them to accede to impossible deadlines, they will call me and I'll retrieve the drawings for them, mark out information carefully by colour coding, and emailing it to them immediately.

It took me lots of time on my side, when I have to do all these on top of the mad workload I have.

But well it helped me, didnt it?

So all it takes is the desire to make things work for you. Dont expect to gain if you are not willing to contribute. But why doesnt The Mother understand that?