Diary #13: Life in the Balance

 I’m a little stuck on a comment a PM of mine made on  a design. Where I asked whether or not I shoudl use infinite scroll and my PM said, “The user need should come first,” to which i said, “yes, but sometimes how it’s implemented can impact how items show up.” In that moment I felt defensive.  Later on, the thought occured to me, maybe he thinks i’m pretentious or not savvy. And i thought ot myself, why do i have to be so combative. I did speak up with the intention of defending myself, but maybe combative is not the right word. I will be mindful of my mood in the future though. I was definitely feeling my limbic system go off. And then after my last meeting, doug was saying he would ping sam for what I thought was a kind of unreasonably low cost. I wanted to say “you idiot, he’ll just say no!”  And I didn’t say it, but i felt frustrated by what had happened. I walked away from my computer to calm down and puzzle out my feelings. I wasn’t upset by what doug had don...

I was talking to my design coworker about the convo i had w/ the front end eng.  I said i would setup a slack group for cross team communications. I had feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. I had thoughts like "I'm afraid to waste people's time with the wrong group. But i had run it by the group so I also had the thought I have to do this now." Then my coworker said all the front end engineers had to mee tup to talk things through. I thought she was talking about the slack group so I made the slack group more specific. I thought she was critiquing my choice of slack, and I already have feelings of anxiety because I thought there might be a godo chance I was doing it wrong and going to annoy someone mistakenly by looping them into things they don't need to be in. We spoke a bit more about how a videochat with everyone woudl be the right way to go. I agreed, but I still felt uncertain. I had thoughts like "something doesn't feel like it's adding up...an...

Today I was told by my manager that another designer wanted to handle some of my work. I felt confused and concerned and said to him that I wasn't sure where that was coming from. We had had a conversation about checking in with each other, or so I thought, but nothing about sharing work. So I asked the other designer about it, and he said he had offered to help streamline some of my work. I feel annoyed by this and confused. And scared of holding work back. I had the thought, I don't want to be accused of holding back work, or even accurately identified as being fearful of having work taken away from me. I had feelings of being trapped and scared. I told him to give me a minute to think about it. I wasn't able to look at the work in its entirety because I dont' have access to the admin page yet. I sat down and asked myself, where is there complexity i'm unsure of so far, and I idnetified this one page that had more questions. And I told him he could go ahead since ...

This happens to me fairly often. My first thought was...god damn this podcast distracted me! I felt angry and I had the thought of putting the blame on the pod cast or my friend who shared it with me. Then I felt guilty. I had the thought, what a terrible friend I'd be. But I still had the feelings of anger burning in me. It's the calendar app, I thought. It's terribly designed. WHY do peopel use this?? I began to feel heat in my face and I started tinkering in the preferences. I fantasized about yelling to my teammates that if they were going to make me use this application I could not be held accountable for responding due to it's poor design. I also thought about what the heck I should say to my teammates. My first thoguht was to apologize and explain myself. But I also thought jumpign in with an apology may not be the best way to start. I heard myself and though, these thoughts are probably not reasonable and maybe it's good to test the neutralizing exercise wit...

This JTBD done framework is great for kicking off brand new cross-team complex projects.

I had a chat w/ a friend last night who is one of the most optimistic and positive people I know. She reminds me so much of young me. Everything is blossoming for her and there's potential everywhere. I think I'm passed that point somehow. I think I'm hitting a point of feeling senior, feeling like you've seen it all, and feeling like there's no more magic. I've seen the patterns over and over and I am not optimistic about change, nor do I want the responsibility to shoulder that burden. But after our chat yesterday it was like getting touch with my self and cultivating that space to dream again with someoen who is a big dreamer, but also one who can put actions to her dreams. I thought that was kind of wonderful. I think I never really pursued what I wanted, I just see the gaps between the dream and the reality I know, but I wouldn't say I've ever given my dreams a true true shot. I haven't recklessly pursued jobs with all my heart and gotten bu...

For a long time I'd always hoped there's be a turning point in my life where everything snapped into place. Like... how at 14 Luna shows up for Usagi, how in the animorphs they come across a blue alien that gives them powers, how peter parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, how Bella moves to Forks and runs into Edward. Somewhere in my mid-twenties, I stopped expecting one big magical moment to transform me into the person I was always meant to be. But in my career and life pursuits, I never stopped hoping for that one transformative moment. Even now, a specific thought I was having was wishing I could find that one mentor that unlocks my potential as a designer. Someone who understands me, and understands how I think. But it hit me tonight that maybe that responsibility is on me. Sure, there can be better or worser teachers, but how much more empowering would it be to know how to teach myself the way I want to. And how unstoppable would I be if I knew how to put mys...