Recovering
So…last week was a situation at work.
Like a really long and involved week.
One of my people resigned to take a better job doing actual UX work.
I wasn’t surprised, actually I was expecting it at some point, just not quite this soon as the person hasn’t been working for the company for a year yet.
I expect there will be a massive exodus come October when people hit their 1 year mark if it doesn’t get better quickly under the client’s new director, not just in my team, but the whole contract.
People are upset that they’re being placed in boxes and not being able to do the work they were trained to do. I’m a little more patient as I’m coming up on my 5 year anniversary and can’t take my hefty retirement money with me until I hit 5 years this fall. But I’m really just sad that my co-workers haven’t had a true [insert company here] experience. They truly are treated like contractors rather than the consultants we are. Even the company culture is very different out in the satellite offices than it is in the DMV. People really aren’t as supported…some hardly talk to their career managers…people don’t even know who all is on their career team.
My new team career team is like that too, but I have the more recent experience of having my career manager be all up in my business and hanging out and having him go to battle on my behalf, without even having to ask. The current situation easier to bear when 4.5 of 4.8 years you HAVE had that support, even if it was a different team. My [insert company here] experience has been relatively good…and has provided awesome opportunities for growth.
If my only experience here was being placed at a desk to do task based work while hearing the repetitive message of “we’re an awesome company even though you’re not allowed to do this, that, and the other” I’d be dissatisfied too.
So I understand.
A few weeks ago, I went to the senior leadership of the project and explained all this. I was blunt too! Like “this is what it is! If there aren’t some changes, I’m afraid we’ll ruin our reputation both with the customer and our own people. They don’t feel supported and I feel like this will lead to people leaving.” I typed up a white paper on the capabilities of my team and went through it with him. He was surprised that out of the 20 things on the list, we were only allowed to do one of the functions (mockups)…and even those could not be done properly as they usually require at least a week of analysis and requirements gathering before those are done (yes we somehow make mockups WITHOUT requirements). He heard me and set it up for me to meet with key groups and explain what we were for and how to engage us. He said he would hold the groups to what we presented and to let him know if we didn’t see progress in how we were being engaged. I made the first presentation last Thursday to a group of about 20 people. They were surprised at all we could do and excited to get us involved on their projects. I have another presentation this Thursday with my current project and a program manager who also happens to be a chief. Too all over the place with the way things are being built and I suggested we meet to discuss “the right way”. One more meeting end of July…a brown bag for the whole division. Will probably drill down to a specific topic like contextual inquiry on that one…the importance of researching the current state of applications and how to ask the right questions during the planning stage of application development.
Amazing that this isn’t already done, right?
So yeah…last week was managing that.
And writing objectives and tasks for our portion of the strategic plan.
And drafting said presentations to be looked over by appropriate chiefs.
And drafting mockups for a pie in the sky module only to be told it wasn’t what they wanted (based on scant requirements they gave us and the ASSUMPTIONS of the project team).
UX Commandment : KNOW THY USER FOR THEY ARE NOT YOU!
And working on a proposal for which I am the compliance manager and graphic designer. 15 graphics/charts/infographics to make.
Frog came for a visit at the end of the week too.
I’m not entirely sure how I’m of my right mind at the moment with all that’s going on.
I am taking myself on a date this weekend though. MJ Immortal tour. Dropped a Benjamin or two for a good seat.
