The Confused Artist

Marc had another tussle with his boss. Minutes before that he had a never-ending argument with one of his teammates.

The drill was not new to him. He will present his side of the story to his boss. Then, listen to what version they had for him. Then, he would acknowledge his error. And then, he would promise not to repeat it.

Today's rendezvous post an agitation with a colleague was not the first one for Marc. 

The last 3 years of his work experience involved more of such incidents. With time such incidents were more frequent. Also, the number of seniors giving him sessions on imbibing him the work culture ethics had also gone up.

But this is not what Marc had planned to do.

Programming excited Marc. But his current role did not let him do that.

He loved to create software that would serve as a tool to solve problems. If one would summarize Marc's ambition in a phrase. Then, that would be "Problem Solving".

But today, he was part of the problem. Though not the trigger point for a problem to start. But a strong catalyst to the problem creation.

His agitation and inability to be a part of the team led him to uncomfortable situations.

After graduating with a computer science degree. The then young Marc aimed to be the wizard of the software creating world.

He aspired to be the one who always had a tool for any problem.

But dreams do not always meet the realities of life.

That is what happened to Marc.

Instead of working on software development. He found himself a part of a team that worked on maintaining software.

For Marc, that was being at the lowest end of the creative life cycle. Maintenance of the software meant a stagnant situation for him. He could not see himself moving ahead. Rather pedaling to stay afloat. And this frustrated Marc. The pressure to work on a mundane job was worse than not creating software.

The young Marc continued with the early teething issues of the career cycle. The hope in the young lad helped him withstand the struggle for the first 6 months of his gruelling job.

The promises of a glorious career by his seniors further helped him stay put in his initial work role.

Though with time, the first few months changed to a few years. And after that, the years and the stagnancy of his job role became permanent.

It was software development that Marc wanted to do. But that role was nowhere in his job role.

He did try to find such roles in other organizations. But that meant starting from scratch all over again.

By that time he had advanced as a senior in his team. The advancement of his designation was his lone achievement. Though that did not reduce his frustrations. But his label of seniority did comfort him some times.

Then, the day came when he received his official pink slip. He did wish for no more one-to-one meetings with the HR. And that pink slip meant the same that he had wished for.

But wishing for the same. He had also wished for finding the solution for his frustrations one last time.

The solution came in from an ad that popped up on his mobile screen.

It was about finding an artistic hobby that is relaxing.

Since he had chucked out taking professional help early on. Thus, immersing himself in a hobby did make some sense to him. Moreover, his office had instructed him to stop spending his weekend time at work.

With no other way to spend his free time, Marc ended up reading all that he could on creative hobbies.

The more that he read on the topic. The more he found himself perplexed on choosing one.

At one moment, it was woodworking that excited him. But with unending projects to choose from. It was difficult for him to segregate the beginner ones from the advanced ones.

The same was the case with the creative hobbies that seemed simple.

Drawing is the most common art hobby. But within it the confusion built up fast. From simple line art to doddles to mural wall art. There was no gradation that helped Marc understand what to begin with.

He spent his time reading about all art forms that he could. He wanted a simple way to know which ones would be best for a beginner. Also, he wanted to know which one would take the least time to finish.

For instance, creating a huge silhouette wall clock seemed like a Herculean task. But if you had your stencils and clock equipment ready. Then, that meant spending about a few hours to finish off the project.

To get to understand this you had to mentor under someone advanced in the art. Or you would require immersing your own time in understanding the concepts.

That made Marc think of a plan.

A plan that could execute in the form of software.

A software that is a mobile app that solves the users’ challenge of finding the right hobby.

That was a simple to execute a plan for Marc. And he did it.

Coming up with his own app on choosing an art hobby was nowhere in Marc's plan. But it did happen.

The workings of the software were quite simple. You could feed your level of experience ranging from a beginner to an advanced. Then, you feed in the number of hours you planned to invest in your hustle project. Then, voila! The app would present the user with a list of probable art career options that they could choose from.

Marc's app titled "The Confused Artist" was apt for its users. Had the app existed before, Marc would have saved himself from the overwhelm. With the help of this app, he could have chosen a good artistic hobby for himself. But if such software did exist. Then, that could have meant that Marc would have had nothing to spend his creative energies on.

His app was a piece of software that removed confusion from aspiring artists. It presented its users with options to choose an art hobby as per their own personality type. The user could get to know what art hobby will be best for them as an engaging side hustle.

In its initial run, the numerous downloads of the app boosted Marc's confidence. That was much needed to pull him from the adversary he was facing in his day job.

But with time, the app got enough sponsored ads to cover his expenses. Down the road, monetizations on the platform gave him returns more than his corporate job.

Now all he needed was a dedicated resource to work on maintaining his app.