u/the-friendly-squid

Started the morning with an email summarized by the following:

I submitted a design for a website landing page and the client fed it to chat GPT to suggest “improvements” and the client and my boss (owner of agency) are just blindly agreeing to it like Chat GPT is some holy figure to be spoon fed by and immediately trust everything it says instead of trusting my judgement shaped from 6 years of schooling with a design degree & masters + my HUMAN experience.

The email, from my boss (owner of agency), quoted exactly as seen from my inbox:

“Hi (my name), I thought you would find this interesting… As you see, the CLIENT put this design through chat and this is what came back. They agreed spot on with what chat suggest please take NOTE as I know you are designing new home page etc and what they are calling out as differentiating them. Thank you”

Below is forwarded from the client, quoted exactly as its written

“Chat GBT review of her work..just an FYI. The feedback is solid if you ask me. [link to chat gpt convo]”

I opened the link to the chat GPT convo sent to me and it starts off with “Got it, you want feedback on **her work**, not the email. I looked at the landing page as a potential customer would, and also a business owner paying for lead generation

Overall Grade: B+ / A-

It looks professional and legitimate. Nothing jumps out as amateur. But I think it **undersells who [client business name] actually is**…”blah blah

And it makes a bunch of shit suggestions by starting them off with “I’d like to see…” and lists shit that the client never fucking provided like specific photography showing their operations and such, metric data like “X product sold”. and pointless things that bloat the effectiveness of a PPC landing page.

I feel so insulted. How do I respond? Do i take it like a good little doggy and do as they are exactly asking, or do I respond with something tactful?

Edit:

Forgot to mention this but it also hallucinated headline copy improvements for a section that didn’t even exist in the design I sent

Update:

Lead developer is on my side and he is going to have a call with my boss about this because at least she listens to him 🥲 he helps with web design work occasionally, but mostly develops and handles the building & management of client websites. The design I made is specifically meant to fit in a template he built, meaning, can’t add random sections that arent in the template. So we have that as leverage to explain why the chat gpt suggestions arent great.

For the seniors/creative directors in this sub or those who look at portfolios and such for hiring candidates. What kind of projects do you specifically look for? What about their portfolio makes you judge whether someone is fit to be hired based on their work? What is an example of an amazing portfolio that says you’d hire this person immediately? Do you look for more full fledged brand identity projects, or are you looking to see more specific individual things like print/layout, social post designs, billboards etc? More safe, corporate styled work, or more artsy high risk type of work?

I am working on redoing my portfolio website. I currently have a mix of different projects. Web design, print work, brand identities, product packaging, motion graphics, etc. (sorted by client/brand).

I’ve been having trouble having my portfolio appeal to the companies I apply to.

I’m looking for an in-house design role or an agency. But i have no idea what types of things to feature in my redone portfolio. I’m so burnt out at my current role and I feel that I’ve become very subpar at graphic design and I need to do a refresh.

For extra context, I am currently employed as a web designer for a local agency and the work here is very stagnant/dead end jobish - and what also sucks is I am not allowed to show any of my work done at the agency on my portfolio. So most of my stuff is from past roles that’s now somewhat outdated, or fake spec branding work.

Now, i am not an inspector myself. However I’ve been teaching myself house things since this is our first house we bought in 2024. It was an estate from a young person who passed away after owning it for 2 years (not from an issue with the house it was an overdose according to neighbors). Owner prior to them i suspect did a lot of DIY work. I am a woman who is married and works in marketing…

1. Garage door was not functional. $3,000 replacement. Was obviously noticed right away within the first few days. Ok, not a huge issue i guess but kind of annoying.

2. Water heater exhaust doesn’t slope 1/4” every 1’ of run. I learned this a week ago wondering why so much condensation sitting around the top. It just shoots up and goes horizontal across like 15’ of basement ceiling then out the side. Yes there was present condensation issues and corrosion. My father in law said it’s normal and that we just had to tighten the pipe collar? Before anyone asks why we haven’t called a plumber yet it’s because our house has been a revolving door for other contractors and our bank account is currently recuperating… had to pay for other priority things. We put a temporary solution vinyl tubing that drains the excess condensation guided by people on the plumbing subreddit. It’s also a 7 year old unit that needs replacing soon anyways.

3. I don’t think there are GFCI outlets in 2/3 bathrooms and some, not all, around kitchen sink. House was built in 2004. I asked my realtor and they said they make GFCI outlets without the buttons. Why would they have 3/5 outlets by the sink with the buttons and 1/3 bathrooms have the outlets with buttons and not the others? How do I test if the non button outlets are GFCI?

4. Generac generator was installed less than 5’ of a window. Had black iron gas pipes BURIED and were rusting… It was pointed out by the hvac company that replaced our air conditioner. Told me that the generator didn’t look right. Just had generator company come out yesterday to correct it.

5. Previous owners had an outdoor hot tub they cut the conduit wiring and it’s just live wires sticking out of the ground. Only thing stopping you from dying is the breaker switch is off. We capped the wires. That’s our next project is to hire an electrician to remove it all entirely and disconnect from breaker.

6. SLOW GAS LEAK COMING FROM WATER HEATER. Although i think the issue coincidentally started after we moved in? I discovered it like a month after closing. Occasional whiff of fart smell coming from air vent in living room directly above water heater. CO detector also was detecting small amount of CO (slow beep, not screaming, and it had a display that showed a small ppm number). Called utility company emergency line and they found a leak. Plumber came and repaired it. Plumber did not notice the water heater vent thing, or why there’s corrosion everywhere.

Umm i think that’s everything but i will probably be discovering more. My husband says I’m paranoid and searching for problems but he’d probably be dead from carbon monoxide and gas leak explosions without me… after all the other problems now he’s paranoid with me 😀

Things inspector did find:

1. Central a/c unit was old. Didn’t know if it worked or not. It did not. Had to replace it. Which we knew was going to be an expense after buying the home. Seller didn’t want to pay for anything but we got the home for a decent price under asking.

2. Electrical to exterior gazebo is not to code it’s just an outdoor extension cord.

3. Dead bird in the attic lol

4. Some water intrusion in the basement that would be solved with gutters. We got gutters installed recently

5. A broken light bulb was in a socket in the kitchen

Hi!

Sort of testing the waters here seeing roughly what it would cost for us to add on a 3 season sun room roughly 15x15 feet in size this day and age where everything is expensive. We have a back sliding door that currently goes out to a small porch but we are thinking of removing that and having an extra room there. I know it won’t be cheap but I’m curious if anyone in this sub has had work like this recently done or if they are a contractor that would roughly know. Just a ballpark number. Google says a super wide range that isn’t helpful.

Ty

Recently this whole year so far, very frequently when i purchase chicken breasts, steak, pork, etc. it’s like borderline spoiled or something is very off with it. I open the meat packages and it has a weird “sulphury” smell, or it smells like very farmy or gamey or something of the like. We also use the meat within the sell by dates within a couple days of purchasing, sometimes within the same day of purchasing, so we aren’t like letting it spoil in the fridge. After cooking, sometimes the flavor also is similar to the smell i described above. I have to generously season the meats to mask the off flavors. Haven’t gotten sick though. Wtf? Anyone else experiencing this?

Looking to find a new job as a graphic designer, web UI/UX design, or something relating to digital marketing. I have ~7 years of experience. Been looking on indeed and linkedin but not much is available. Would share more specific info about my skills & education but I don’t want to dox myself or potentially have my current employer see this and connect the dots.

Been applying and getting interviews but end up getting ghosted after 3-4 rounds because either the market is so competitive, or someone internal is appointed. Thought I’d ask the Albany Reddit. If anyone knows if any local businesses are hiring outside of the two platforms mentioned above. Ty!