Man Down

I'm going to break one of my rules and address how long it's been since I've posted.

It's been forever - and my thanks to those who have asked after me.

Nerdhaven has been good to me. I've herded some new features into production along with Runner & Sprint. Code was written, users were interviewed, and future iterations are planned.

And I've gotten two vacations since I started. Honest to God take-the-family-someplace-fun vacations.

We saw waterfalls - and buffalo. Someone broke into our car.

Fun was had by all.

We've survived the child care pong of summer - and with school at last beginning - I felt poised to start the final big push to land Arwafn with a full set of features.

Runner and I are joined at the hip these days - and we are going to get this thing done.

Without Noddy.

Because of a date picker. I'll explain.

Runner and I spent a good deal of time sorting through the work pile and looking for what gets spec'ed out next. We're given a truly staggering amount of leeway to do this and neither of us want to tank on this so we start getting micromanaged.

Deliver the goods on time, you get to run your own room. Fail to deliver - and corporate will be all up in your sh!t.

We want to avoid that at all costs. So we're hitting it hard. Problem is, that 'we' only includes two people. Noddy - while on paper assigned to help out with the larger effort that includes Arwafn - pointedly does jack sh!t.

I wish I was exaggerating this, but we log all our work into a web app. I can run activity histories on anyone on the project and the work they contribute to queue. True, a good amount of work is done outside of the app - but any tangible end product must end up there. You might have a gap in a log for awhile, but the gap would end with a flurry of activity when all your offline efforts turned into deliverables. I'm looking at Noddy's activity history and there's a two month gap of nothing.

Nothing. In two months. The gap starts when Noddy copies a set of old stories written by Sensei into a new section of the app. Copy and paste. Then two months of nothing... then three bits of work were slightly edited.  Then two more weeks of nothing.

I have watched Noddy sit at their desk and surf Ebay. Now, we all hit the web sometimes at work. Perfectly acceptable, so long as you keep it under control.

Noddy is running a side business selling collectibles - during work hours, on their work machine.

Runner and I tried giving work to Noddy, in the hopes of bringing them around. Every single task we gave them turned into weeks of delay - followed by their asking us to do the work for them.

"Can you look through this? Feel free to edit whatever."

Or, you know, do it for me.

We asked Noddy to do a truly basic piece of UI - select a date range - just to keep them from meddling in the work that mattered. THREE WEEKS later - they return with a fully functioning prototype, delivered in executable file. They demo'ed it to us for feedback and Runner and I were just aghast.

In UX - you don't do this. Not out of the gate. Not without bouncing your early drafts off your colleagues. Because now we have to tell them that their shiny executable is (to put it mildly) horsh!t UI. A huge wedge of screen real estate devoted to a small problem - that could have been addressed with a one day mock up!

Three weeks. True - Runner and I were glad to have the break from Noddy. So long as they had something that was theirs, they would stop leaning over our desks and offering high handed wisdom about what we "should" be doing. So, we let them waste their time instead of ours.

But that was the last bit for me. I have regular check ins with the boss, UXDir and while I'd tried to stay above the fray - I finally lost it.

"What the hell is going on with Noddy?" I detailed our frustrations with getting work out of him - using two specific examples where time and effort were lost waiting for them to produce.

UXDir nodded knowingly and asked "If I get them out of your way, would that help?"

"Absolutely."

UXDir told me neither of us had to involve him in our project work - and that Noddy would be given other assignments.

Sweet!

Freed up from pretending to count on Noddy - or invite them to our meetings. Runner and I settled in to do get stuff done.

Noddy chose some low priority work and basically stayed at the back of the queue. They were working on stuff, they said- but it was so far down on the list it would never get worked on.

Which meant, again, that they did nothing.

Runner and I hurled ourselves into our project work. We would get nothing out of Noddy, but we had two kick-ass devs in BigDog and OneTwentyEight and we were giving them a steady stream of work.

Sh!t. Got. Done.

Over on the west coast, our senior team member, Sprint, was in a similar situation. The Professor had bailed out leaving a huge pile of smoke and mirrors in their wake that Sprint (and Data) would be expected to turn into awesomeness. And they were still crushing it. Sprint is just an incredible person. There's no real way to express my professional admiration for them without coming across as a total dork, so I try not to get in their way and remain pleasant.

I want to be like Sprint. Pair me up with a snobbish, do-nothing, pot-head of a designer - fine. I'll still kick this job's ass. What about that? Oh, they quit? Fine. Less hassle for me.

Sprint works with Data, but being down a UX role in that office is way less than ideal. Sprint has still outproduced Runner and I combined. For months. They rock.

Months you say? Yeah. I hate to pick on the boss, but UXDir is not really quick out of the gate on administration things. Y'know, stuff like standing on laggers' heads - or hiring replacements for folks who left in May.

A few weeks ago - we got invites to participate in panel interviews for replacing the Professor. I'm flattered to be asked. I remember my interview panel: Heater, Noddy, Flyer, UXDir and OneTwentyEight. Aside from Noddy - it was among the most fun I'd had at an interview, ever.

Now I was going to get to vet the replacement for the Professor. Cool!

Reading through the resumés, however, made me really wonder. Only one of the candidates had UX experience of any kind. Which is weird, because I get that you would get these applicants - I just didn't see how they would make it to a final interview stage.

UXDir flew out to the west coast office to do the interviews along with Sprint, the rest of us videoconferenced into them.

True to form, Noddy's phone rang in the middle of an interview (they always set it on piercingly loud, too). Later in the same interview, they surfed the web in full view of the camera.
That earned us all an admonition to bring no phones or laptops into the remaining interviews.

Next interview? Noddy brought an apple that they proceeded to eat during the interview. To be discrete, though, they sat immediately behind me and ate the apple right behind my head so it wouldn't be seen by the video camera.

Awesome, right?

I learned a lot about interviewing people by watching Sprint and most of our team agreed on who we'd hire and who we wouldn't. UXDir joked that he was thinking of settling down on the west coast - it was so nice, and they'd get to work with Sprint.

It was a good bonding thing.

Next week UXDir is back in the office looking utterly shredded from travel. I stayed out of their way. UXDir's got enough to do and I knew what my punch list was before vacay. No final decision was going to be made before I got back - so I sorted out my priority list and tried to make sure there were no loose screws.

I'm walking out the door "See you in a week"

UXDir "Yeah, if I don't get fired."

????

Okay, I'm terrible at getting UXDir's sarcasm - and they have a wicked sense of humor that I keep mistaking for candor.

"Uh..."

They grin. "Kidding. See you in two weeks. I'm on vacation, 'week after next."

Elevator door closes. Queue vacation montage.

Mountains.
Valleys.
Wildlife.
Crime-ridden, hellscape that is Billings, Montana.
Home.

Exhausted.

I reorient myself with the workflow. BigDog is bogged down in admin stuff, OneTwentyEight is absolutely killing it. Coding up a storm and tackling a particularly thorny custom PDF document to boot.

It has finally occurred to Noddy that performance metrics are being logged. So a flurry of vapor-work is appearing in our tracking app. They are doing something, but again - it is so far down in the priority list, they might have well stayed home.

Now, I might have sympathy for Noddy in this - they are being given the ass-end of project work - but only because no one wants to rely on them to do important work.

Further, were I Noddy - and found myself getting sh!t work - I would slap down some work, get it to RFD and march into my boss's office and demand more and better work.

Not Noddy. Noddy spins their wheels in purgatory like they're in paradise. Yea! Look at me, doing make work while everyone else is so stressed. Why so serious, guys? Huh?

Runner and I are no longer polite to Noddy.

Part of this is my fault. I had this ideal that I would not stoop to denying a fellow UX'er client time. Runner and I had interviews with clients who are testing our Arwafn feature and I just could not see excluding Noddy from them.

On what grounds would I do that, really?

We'd studiously scheduled meetings without Noddy when the entire topic was project work they weren't on - namely, Our work. Those I could stomach. I could look Noddy in the eye and say - "You aren't working on Arwafn - so we figured your time would be better spent on your projects."

I could do that.

But when it came to client contact (the all too rare source of many a good design) I just couldn't stoop that low.

So I invited Noddy.

Runner was just about apoplectic. "What the hell are you thinking? Sprint warned us about this!"

And they had. Told us how Noddy would jump into somebody else's client interview asking drawn out questions from their own agenda - derailing Sprint's carefully constructed interview script and wasting priceless client time.

But I'd sent the invites already. I figured Noddy might not come to all of our interviews. We had like six lined up, he might only go to half - at most.

The week of the first Arwafn interview - Noddy hears Runner and I talking about the setup work we're doing for them and asks "Do you have some interviews coming up? Can I come?"

Now, understand - They would have received invites for at least four interviews by this time. Four. They'd accepted all of them. Which means all of them are on their calendar - or should be.

"Yeah. We have three this week. One next week."

Noddy looks hurt. "Can you forward them to me?"

I. Fricking. Did.

"Sure."

I send all four that I have. Again.

Runner rolls their eyes.

*  *  *  *  *  *

When we fire up the first Arwafn interview, Noddy is nowhere to be found. Runner and I get things rolling and we have a great interview going and -

Noddy bursts into the room 20 minutes late, and immediately starts offering commentary to Runner - distracting them from facilitating the interview. Runner's taken by surprise, and goes along for awhile. Noddy wants them to look up an online document for them that relates to something that Noddy wants to ask about.

Something that has NOTHING to do with what this interview is going after.

Noddy passes me a note about a question they want to ask. Noddy wants to build a certain feature in Arwafn - and he wants to ask the clients if they would like it.

This is bullshit research. A user who just says they 'like' something hasn't told you anything. They have to say what they would do with it that they couldn't do before. Give me a reason. When you do show and tell, or lead them with a question - you'll often get: 'that'd be nice.' Which doesn't help you understand why they want it.

But more to the point - the thing Noddy is asking about - is something that we've already gotten quality feedback on, fifteen minutes earlier on - when they weren't here. Now they want to waste our interview time so they can be personally caught up.

I head them off and keep to my script. Then Noddy passes me some other notes about other features - features that are nice to haves - when the purpose of the interview is to validate the basic function of Arwafn.

I don't need feedback on these other features - I know the users want them - and if I have time, we will build them for them. But FIRST, we need to know if Arwafn is hitting the mark on the absolute basics.

Noddy's done NONE of the design work, none of the interview setup, none of the legwork, hasn't read the script and shows up late - yet they still want to drive the interview towards their pet questions.

Worse, their pet ideas for Arwafn aren't even their ideas - these are features that are plain as day requests from the market - writ large. In Noddy's mind, however - they are championing a needed feature and Runner and I shutting them down means we are close minded.

The interview ends and Noddy continues to press for these extra bells and whistles. Like Runner and I haven't heard of them. Like we're opposed to them.

We're not. At this point, we just hate Noddy's guts and anything they say - but more professionally - we had research goals for the session and these features aren't part of them.

* * * * *

Incredibly, Noddy repeats their performance at least once more (late, pestering us with BS questions, the whole bit).

Runner is about to stab me in the eye with a pencil, but not before I stab Noddy first.

So. Sick. Of Noddy.

* * * * *

Labor Day Weekend.

Sloth. Food. And More Sloth.

First day back promises to be busy. There's a critical prioritization meeting in the afternoon, and a team lunch we won at the company Olympics. 

(Told you this place was cool.)

Anyway we start up with the Retro. Agile demands it.

BigDog is running the show - which is odd, because OneTwentyEight was on the signup sheet for leading today. OneTwentyEight's not in yet, which is also odd, because they always like to arrive early and leave early.

BigDog plows through the Retro with all speed, which is good because I've got my regular meeting with UXDir in less than a half an hour. I've been out, they've been out- there's a lot to talk about. I wrote an agenda for crying out loud.

Mid retro- UXDir sends a meeting to all of UX. "Quick Meeting."

I know what you're thinking. Sudden meetings with the boss are bad. But that was CorpWorld. This is Nerdhaven. Runner is thinking the same thing.

"What do you think the meeting is?"

I bluff. "A decision's been made on the new UX hire."

But I know that's not right.

* * * * *

Retro ends and we go into UXDir's office.

They start out with "Candidate 3 has accepted our offer."

Awesome. They were my favorite.

UXDir continues, "...and my last day will be September 17."

And there it is. The answer to that hollow spot that's been floating around them for the past month. 

They have been marginalized in their current role. They've been looking for a new challenge and there did not seem to be any good choices for them here at Nerdhaven. Their kids are just starting school - so a move at this point is easier than later. And they've been offered a good opportunity to start a UX team from scratch. They had to....

That old feeling, back again. The Boss leaves, and the team they leave behind feels the world tilt a bit...

...towards the door.

I have my one on one with them immediately afterwards and they go out of their way to assure me that UX is not going anywhere. "It is ingrained in our process here. That's part of why my current role is so limited."

I joke, "Your work here is done."

UXDir laughs. They are such an immensely likable person. I've never had more trouble reading a person I liked so much. I'm constantly mis-communicating with them - yet the are truly inspiring in their role. They've done it all before, and my suggestions always sound stupid to me when I'm talking to them. They let the air out of any procedural bullshit they see - seize on it and hurl it outside before it derails the room. 

I've spent a lot of time working for people who don't get UX, and until September 17 of this year - I will be working for a person who makes me feel like I don't get UX at all. I want them to stay. I want to catch up to where they are. 

UXDir is a bit of a mess as a manager - but they are an inspired designer. 

And they lead from the front. 

* * * * *

I'm back in the project room - I think. We rip through the day - Lunch with most of the team. No YQA or OneTwentyEight, but the rest of us have a good time.

Later we get with product, sort our priorities out. Mostly. Product refreshingly doesn't want to deal in the details, but that means sometimes they assume the "obvious" details are being handled. We're meeting to get on the same page.

UXDir and Product come to an agreement. Then I'm off to telecommute from home.

I'm in my easy chair, firing up the VPN and Runner IM's me and we decompress about UXDir's departure means.

I sincerely believe that UX is sound in this shop.

But Noddy.

Noddy scares me. UXDir was never going to can them - but with UXDir gone, there are a few possibilities that are unfolding simultaneously in Runner's mind and mine.

1. Nerdhaven hires to replace UXDir, Noddy applies for the job and since they are "Lead UX" some higher up decides they should go with the internal candidate.
2. Nerdhaven doesn't hire to replace UXDir. The purely admin duties of managing us go to some other manager with lots of other mouths to feed and the day to day leadership of UX is given to "Lead UX" Noddy.
3. Nerdhaven doesn't hire to replace UXDir. UX is left to its own devices and Noddy continues their well established pattern of doing the absolute minimum.

Runner and I are advancing our most likely scenarios going forward - IM'ing back and forth like pessimistic hummingbirds when they stop dead:

OneTwentyEight is in ICU!

What?

Runner explains. OneTwentyEight is a diabetic. They've been admitted with DKA - Diabetic Ketoacidosis. This means that OneTwentyEight's insulin level is low enough that their body has started to eat itself.

OneTwentyEight is not some elderly, overweight person neglecting their health. They are young. Very young. With a disease that will progress in severity over whatever time it is given.

And they are sitting in an ICU - while Runner and I have been fretting over something as stupid as an annoying coworker.

It's hard to express the sentiment that builds up on a good team for me. Most of my life I moved around and left the people I knew behind without much thought.

But I like stable. And I like my team - and I don't want to get too over the top, but they are good people. I want to help them.

I doubt we would hang out outside of work without some pronounced awkwardness - but as a unit we kick major ass. And OneTwentyEight is in real trouble. And there is nothing we can do for them.

I suppose I could stop whining.

...