No, I Don’t Want to Network

It’s my birthday today, and I’ve been feeling a strange mix of pride and anger. Thinking about where I am, where I’ve been, and how the hell I got here. I constantly compare myself to who I used to be, not in a nostalgic “better days” kind of way, but in a what-the-fuck-happened kind of way.

Yesterday I had this moment, maybe an epiphany, where I found myself thinking about my old path. The one I was sure I’d be on forever. The one I thought I was meant for when I was a kid.

There’s an old home video of me, probably seven or eight years old, looking dead into the camera and telling my mom I wanted to “design things” when I grew up. I didn’t even know what that meant. I just knew I had to make stuff. I made my own Pokémon cards, my own magazines, wrote stories, drew logos for fake businesses. I was a little tyrant of creativity. A selfish kid who needed to see his ideas come to life.

That obsession got me into every design program in high school. By senior year, I had my first real gig at a Cleveland record label. I showed up nervous as hell, with a printed résumé and a portfolio full of nothing. The owner looked at it and tore it in half right in front of me. Didn’t blink. Just asked, “Can you do the job?”

I said yes. That was it. No bullshit. No gatekeeping.

I’ll always be grateful to Mr. Sheehan for that chance because he and his team believed in me. What a group that was. A story for another time.

I spent those years designing concert flyers for VFW halls, metal band merch, and album covers for emo bands. It was fast and dirty. That kind of design, ugly, honest, imperfect, felt like home. But those days are long gone.

I never had enough tattoos. I was too loud, too messy, too chaotic. I didn’t sip coffee and nod quietly during critiques. I said what I meant and got labeled “difficult.” I was kicked out of art school and still outworked everyone in the room. The truth is, the design world never wanted people like me. And I stopped wanting to be part of it a long time ago.

Now it’s all sanitized rebellion, the illusion of freedom dressed in Helvetica. The design world today is a high school cafeteria: cliques, agency politics, and unspoken rules about how you’re supposed to behave if you want in. If you speak too loudly, you’re abrasive. If your work’s too weird, it’s “off brand.” If you didn’t intern at the right studio, you might as well not exist.

Some of these firms preach inclusivity while hiring carbon copies of themselves. They want “fresh ideas” but punish anyone who actually thinks differently. They call themselves rebels while propping up the same old systems they pretend to hate. I’ve seen it firsthand. People cosplaying as rebellious, tattooed creative directors with slick decks and safe ideas. “Disruptors” who never disrupt anything. They want you loud enough to trend, but quiet enough to stay in your place.

I tried to make it work. I freelanced. I got stuck in B2B software companies designing infographics for tools I didn’t care about. I made brand decks for people who had no business touching a brand. I went to art school, got kicked out for being drunk, loud, and unwilling to play nice, and still ran circles around most of my peers.

But they knew how to behave. I didn’t. That was the difference.

So I stopped trying to get through the door. I built my own.

And the one place that never asked me to change? The kitchen.

The restaurant industry doesn’t care what your LinkedIn looks like or where you went to school. It doesn’t give a shit about your Behance or your résumé layout. It just asks one question: Can you show up and do the work?

If the answer is yes, you’re in.

It’s one of the most diverse and accepting places I’ve ever stepped into. Nobody cares what you look like, where you’re from, or what mistakes you’ve made. If you can keep up, hold your weight, and push through a Friday night rush without folding, you’ve earned your place.

It reminds me of post-WWII motorcycle clubs. Guys who came back broken, angry, and unable to re-enter the clean-cut American dream. So they found each other. Built something gritty and real. Brotherhood. Loyalty. Not because of how you looked or what you said, but because of what you did and how you showed up. No judgment. Just action.

The kitchen’s like that. Yeah, it’s brutal. You need a steel spine, calloused hands, and knees that don’t quit. It’s cliquey in its own way, but it’s honest. There’s no pretending. You earn your spot every shift. And when you’re in the middle of the chaos, you don’t have time to wonder if you belong. You just do.

Maybe I was never a “graphic designer” at all. Maybe I’m something else. I still make things. I still create. I still design brands, build shirts, sketch ideas late at night when I should be sleeping. But maybe it’s not about logos anymore. Maybe it’s about more than crafting the perfect pitch or getting the cleanest grid.

Maybe I can do something more with all of this. Maybe I can take what I’ve lived through and help someone else. Maybe I can show the other misfits, the outcasts, the “too louds” and “too muches” that there’s another way. That they’re not alone.

I didn’t fail. I didn’t burn out. I just stopped giving a shit about impressing people who never saw me to begin with.

I’m not trying to fit in anymore.

I was never one of you.

No, I don’t want to network. I don’t want to grab coffee. I don’t want to “circle back” or be part of your curated creative community.

All offense given. Kindly, fuck off.

If I’m coming off bitter, it’s because, well, I am. And that’s okay. It’s cathartic to share this. It’s freeing to get this off my chest after years of drinking these emotions away. So no, I’m not coming from a place of hate.

(Although I do despise most of you. It’s alright. You’ll be fine.)

I’ve earned this bitterness.

I know this probably reads like a manifesto, and if you’re thinking that, I get it. I swear I’m not angry though. Sure, this isolated cabin in the woods is a little cramped, and yeah, I’ve started talking to a squirrel I’ve named Bobo, but I promise I’m not about to do anything crazy.

Besides attempting to start my own business and make my own way.

You may think I shouldn’t be bitter.
To that I say: fuck you. 😁