In every field, there are experiences that can be described as suicidal. In freelancing, dealing with a government entity is the epitome of such an experience. Despite some benefits that come with this kind of work, particularly the financial aspect, the downsides far outweigh them. Even the most experienced designers and developers avoid working with government entities. Why? After reading the following sections, you’ll understand why.
But before that, are there any advantages to working with government entities other than “strengthening your inner faith, patience, and training your mind for disasters”?
Yes, ask any freelancer or someone who has worked with a government entity about the amount they were paid. They’ll tell you that they multiplied their normal rate by 3 to 5 times or even 10. Once they started working with one entity, they found themselves quickly working with most of the other government companies and entities, becoming their go-to designer. Perhaps this is because they’ve become seasoned in this field or simply because they’re suited to this type of work, which is based on envy and competition. Just as the manager of a certain company updated its logo or website through so-and-so, another manager decides to bring in the same designer and pay even more to create something “new and better.” In the end, it feels like a bleak, deadly race, but it benefits those who can endure this chaos. So, if we take the financial aspect as an advantage, I’d say it’s the only one.
Away from the bright side of such dealings, let’s dive into quick glimpses of what you might face when dealing with a government entity:
The Scary Hierarchy
As soon as you enter the tangled forest of job titles, your real problems will begin. “The administrative manager, the secretary, the accountant, the general manager… and his deputy, and names you won’t even remember,” they all agree on one thing: “Not agreeing on anything.” The logo might be too big or too small for some. They’ll ask you to change the color, only for someone else to say the color is just right. One person might jump in saying that the style is great, only for another to say it’s terrible. And so it goes on, endlessly. And even if you reach the top of the hierarchy, the decision often won’t be his own, but rather influenced by other factors, such as:
The Manager’s Wife
Yes, quite simply. If you try to bypass the forest and present your work directly to the manager, he’ll likely consult someone else, someone you wouldn’t even think of in your wildest stories, like his office attendant, the coffee and tea guy, or his wife. Yes, and since his wife doesn’t know what email is, he’ll send your work to her via “fax” or with the office driver, or perhaps he’ll take a photo of it with his phone and send it through a messaging app, asking for her opinion and justifying this mess with “it’s an unbiased opinion, far from the profession,” or that his wife is well-versed in artistic works, sculpture exhibitions, and poetry evenings.
As soon as you sense this phase beginning… close your eyes and surrender to the various forms of nonsense and absurdity.
Administrative Competition
“I want the company’s logo to be larger than the logos of other companies, and I need more colors in it – or can we add more letters and words? What if I included two letters in the logo representing my name and my son’s name?” If you think these questions are far-fetched, you clearly don’t know anything about government entities. It only takes one manager in a big company to change his company’s or organization’s logo, for all the other managers to follow suit and change theirs as well.
Suddenly, it becomes nothing more than a duel or race, not to mention the amount of gossip, lies, and ridicule that goes on between them. Everyone believes they’re the best at what they do.
“The Manager Listens to Me”
The office manager or the deputy manager is always portrayed as a comedic character in stories and sitcoms, and rightly so. They’re always the one who wants you to know they’re the real brain behind the company, that the manager doesn’t do anything without consulting them and seeking their advice. Your work won’t be approved or utilized unless they give it the green light. Then they’ll hint that you need to get closer to them because they’re the one with the first and last word, and you naturally become a pawn played by the manager, his deputy, and another employee who resents both of them.
The Classic Manager
“I’m someone who appreciates classic choices; I’m not into trends, technology, and these modern crazes. I need something non-contemporary, something old that reminds me of my youth, specifically in the ‘90s.” He then follows up with, “Ah, those were the days, they won’t come back.” He might even ask you, “Would you like me to give you my photo album from when I was young so you can draw some inspiration for the project?”
Conferences and Conspiracies
When you present the initial drafts, a meeting will be scheduled, with results expected in a week. After you submit the first revisions, the administration will call for an urgent meeting that will end after two days of back-and-forth discussions, followed by a meeting to finalize things and settle on a single draft with its final revisions. Suddenly, the manager falls ill, or it’s time for his annual recovery period in Paris, and the project halts until his return after 21 days, during which he brings back some European designs that prompt another meeting with the board to conspire against an employee who expressed admiration for one of the designs that the manager didn’t like. He’ll instruct you not to inform that employee about the secret meeting you had and the new deadline to start the work from scratch and come up with an entirely new result.
The Sudden Transformation
Overnight, you go from being a regular person who attends scheduled meetings with the manager and company members to discuss the work and their revisions, to a full-time employee. Your responsibilities gradually shift to: fixing the company’s networks, recovering the manager’s computer password, installing the latest operating system version, recovering some lost data, changing the desktop wallpaper, then printing and archiving some documents, or quickly making a cup of coffee while the manager reviews your work.
Source Files
If you finish your work and still retain your sanity after going through all of the above, how wonderful it would be to prepare your work files and send them to the manager or hand them over to the IT person, who has now become your loyal friend. Then, how delightful it is when they request the work in Word format? Insisting on it because it’s “the officially approved format in their company.” Sure, the tech guy is your friend, but he’s not the kind you can fool by giving your work in your usual weird, deceptive formats like AI, EPS, or PSD. And how impressed the manager and everyone around him will be if you also provide the work in PowerPoint format!
The Invoice and Payment Order
I guess this is what made you endure everything that came before, right? It’s the goal or the only real advantage, isn’t it? Well, even here, you need to prepare your mind to handle delays, bureaucratic considerations, and all their hierarchical levels. You’ll face things like: “The payment order hasn’t been issued yet; the invoice needs to be reviewed by the manager and then the finance committee; the invoice was approved, but it will be split into two payments; the payment order won’t be issued for another two months; we need a certified invoice with a stamp from your officially registered company” even though they knew from the start that you’re a freelancer without a company. “Everything is good, but there’s a mistake in your name, so we’ll need to reissue the invoice; the invoice wasn’t approved because the government is going through austerity measures right now.”
In Conclusion
I won’t end this the way I usually do, by retracting the generalization and applying it only to specific cases, because what I’ve described above covers more than 95% of cases dealing with Arab government entities. If you don’t believe me… listen to the experiences of those who have come out of these dealings with their sanity intact, and then tell me if I’m wrong.