Once again, an email popped up. Amy saw the familiar profile picture and let her fingertips hover over the trackpad for two seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHi Amy, the last draft was mostly OK, but there are a few small things I\u2019d like to tweak\u2014you know, just tweak it a bit; it won\u2019t be much trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stared at those four words\u2014\u201cjust tweak it a bit\u201d\u2014for three seconds. The previous email had those same four words. So did the one before that. This was already the eighth time she\u2019d been told to \u201cjust tweak it a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside the window was the perpetually gray sky of Midtown Manhattan. It was 7:40 p.m., and only a single desk lamp remained lit at her workstation. James from the neighboring team had left long ago; the succulent on his desk hung limply, a perfect reflection of her current state of mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She opened the file and went through the client\u2019s revision notes one by one. They claimed it was \u201cjust a few minor changes,\u201d but the list actually contained seventeen items. Item three: Make the blue in the homepage banner a bit cooler, but not too much\u2014it should be \u201cjust barely noticeable.\u201d Item five: Bold the title font by 2 percent\u2014yes, exactly 2 percent, not a bit more. Item twelve: The white space on the entire page \u201cfeels\u201d half a centimeter too wide; they\u2019d like it \u201cvisually\u201d tightened up a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amy picked up her mug; the coffee had gone completely cold. She recalled five years ago, when she was just starting out in the industry and received her first \u201cjust tweak it a bit\u201d request. She had stayed up all night creating three versions for the client to choose from. Now she understood\u2014so-called \u201cjust a little tweak\u201d was never really just a little. It was a figure of speech clients used to ease their own guilt, as if to say, \u201cI\u2019m only bothering you a tiny bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She got to work. While adjusting the blue, she changed the color value from #4A7CF5 to #4A7CF7, then to #4A7CF6. Finally, she settled on #4A7CF6 and wrote a note to herself: \u201cA difference of two units that the client won\u2019t notice, but I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To bold the font by 2%, she tested it three times in Keynote and discovered that, to the naked eye, there was actually no difference between 1.8% and 2%. She chose 2% because, at least, the number looked neat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she reached the twelfth adjustment, she paused. She scaled the page down to actual size and stared for a long time at that so-called \u201chalf-centimeter of extra white space.\u201d She turned off the guides and rulers, relying solely on her eyes\u2014and shifted it up by two pixels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Save. File name: project_final_v8_FINAL.ai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She thought for a moment, then made a copy and renamed it: project_final_v8_FINAL_really.ai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The moment she closed her laptop, her phone lit up. It was a message from the client: \u201cGreat work, Amy! I\u2019ll take another look tomorrow\u2014go home for now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t reply. She slung her bag over her shoulder and stepped into the elevator. Outside the glass curtain wall, the city\u2019s lights were coming on one by one. She suddenly recalled her mother asking over the phone last week, \u201cYou\u2019re constantly making changes every day\u2014what exactly are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She hadn\u2019t been able to answer then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, as she stepped out of the office building and the slightly chilly October breeze swept up her collar, she thought: I suppose it\u2019s about helping the world\u2019s shades of blue find that one shade that\u2019s just right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although no one can really tell what that \u201cjust right\u201d looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she knew it was there. And that was probably enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Eighth Draft Where the Client Says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-others","tag-story","tag-work"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}