Is that a crackhead? No, sweetie, that's a Web designer. Now stay close to mommy...

toothpastefordinner.com

Something occurred to me as I was standing groggy-eyed in the line at Rite-Aid this morning to buy Visine and Vitamin Energy for the day ahead, racking my brain to come up with the word "credit" to describe the thing I was handing the cashier: At this rate, there's no way I'm going to live to see age 50. As of Thursday morning this week I have slept for a combined total of 13 hours, worked on one thing or another for 49 hours, and consumed about 120 ounces of coffee/energy drink. I still manage to keep my car inside the lines on the way to work, but clearly something's got to give.

I don't know the numbers, but I'd be interested to see what percentage of Web workers suffer from some form of job-related physiological malaise—hypertension, high blood pressure, or even TMD/mandibular arthritis from subconsciously clenching their teeth at night. Based on A List Apart's 2007 survey of the Web Industry, 65% of Web workers spend between 30 and 50 hours at their regular jobs, and 72% have their own blog, so I'd be willing to bet there are quite a few of us out there coming home from our paid jobs to a plethora of other self-motivated work, funded or otherwise. So what drives designers/developers to do this to themselves? I'm gonna throw a few of my own reasons out there, and maybe somebody else will chime in with theirs:

1) Overwhelming desire to create!
Cliche or not, this is a huge factor where free time is concerned. Everybody's got ideas, and like it or not, somebody out there has your ideas—it's only a matter of time before someone else does it faster and better than you would have. What's worse, you don't even have to be better these days to become the next craptacular Myspace or Kodakgallery.com

2) Upward ambition
Whoa, hold the phone! People want... to improve... their lives? Building a deep and polished portfolio is the key to developing professionally, and ultimately, landing a better job (though chatting idly on a blog is fast becoming a close second). The more work you do, the more you have to offer as a designer or developer, and if you're crazy enough, you can do an awful lot in a short amount of time.

3) Fear of obsolescence
I recently had the occasion to give some "advice" to the son of my wife's co-worker who is interested in getting into Web design. He showed me his portfolio—mostly flash work, crudely designed but well intentioned—and I gave him some pointers on Photoshop tricks and frame rates. I think I can safely say that I got more out of the experience than he did (sorry dude). It is scary to think that sophomores in high school know more about ActionScript today than I did my senior year of college, and while I welcome the incredible advancement in Web technology that will surely result from these kids pouring into the job market, I refuse to be left in their dust ;)