Happy Friday!
This week was actually pretty good, but I’m tired…
Main project is going SWIMMINGLY! The team is amazing and working like a well oiled machine! We truly enjoy working together, no drama, everyone feels supported and enabled, we’re truly killing the game! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times…your job as a team lead is to serve your team. Servant leadership! Get them whatever they need and only do minor corrections…instead of telling them what they need to do. Protect them from outside factors at all costs (politics, noise, extra-curricular meetings, etc.)! Provide them information and let THEM come up with the solutions! Trust their ability to do their jobs and get out of their way!
The gratifying compliments I get about us are not the ones commenting on my leadership skills, they’re passive…developers saying that they enjoy their work, they feel supported, and that they’re learning a lot. A few of them have come to my office just to tell me this personally and it gave me heart palpitations. I still feel like this is the perfect role for Senior UX people to be in because at our core, we are about making sure “the people” have what they need by really stepping into their minds and designing solutions around their own mental models. You can really apply that aptitude to anything!
Second project picked up again also which has been…a challenge. Lots of meetings and trading emails to support between all my projects, and I hadn’t gotten the time to sit and get things done.
Did that last night…for 8 hours…after my 9 hour day from the main gig. Wrote a statement of work, wrote the technical approach, and followed through with actually doing several hours worth of code in support of the work. I didn’t think it would take that long, but if I’m in code AND I’m the designer for a project, I get super meticulous about stuff. If it’s one pixel off…and so on and so forth.
Also reminded me that I HATE building websites for people. Applications, I don’t mind, but websites are so much more subjective. There is no definition of “done” with them. This is the same site I was working on last fall…they’ve kept extending it to have more work done. Normally that’s a good thing, but it’s not when I’m already 150% (actual numbers) billable on other contracts.
My delegation didn’t work either (at my level, I’m not actually supposed to be in code like this anymore)…they specifically asked for me though because they like my designs.
Yo I only got “this good” by my failures over the years…let someone else fail and get better! Hmph!
So yeah running on fumes today. 2 more meetings than I’m trying to dip out. I’d like to take down my twists and do a hair spa….clean my house up…address the weeds peeking up in my yard with a concoction my dad gave me, get a tire addressed (light came on my dash today), clean out the fish tank and get some more fish to help keep it clean, get a new tank filter because mine’s loud, and stalk my little mentee because she’s been MIA lately….
You know…all things known as KaNisa downtime, lol :|
