I do corporate UX work, and while I've been in some fairly rarified environments - my clients have been truly mundane flavors of the craft. Design this form so people scan it and throw it away. This web page needs a bunch more fields added to it - make them fit without additional expense.
This place I visited - two weeks before I left CorpWorld - was altogether different.
This place was UX Candy Land.
On literally every level, beginning with the invite. I get pinged on LinkedIn by a guy I've never heard of. That's pretty typical of LinkedIn - but usually it's some parasitical recruiter "Hi, I've got an exciting opportunity for a seasoned UXer in Portland."
This came from the president of a design firm.
Dude. Okay, I'll look into this.
His company was local. Practically across the street from CorpWorld - and I'd never heard of it.
I scanned their website and one thing became clear.
This man was the President of a Design Firm.
As in, this place was a serious deal. Design and construction for big ticket clients. My experience is in web interface - the ephemeral bits we use to manipulate our digital marionettes.
Candy Land? They made Things.
Medical devices that they fashioned in their very own machine shop. They gave me a tour and showed me a place that looked like M5.
Open concept working spaces.
Conference rooms packed with spiffy gear and youthful pros.
A hall filled with their award winning creations - medical devices that saved lives.
This wasn't a business - it was a cause.
It.
Was.
AWESOME.
They were looking for UX contacts in the area, because all their custom devices would have screens and would need UI.
Oh, and they sold things all over the world. International travel might be involved.
The President took me out to lunch and picked my brain about UX. I had him rolling in the aisle.
I know, Right??
But you've read my blog before, so you know this wasn't my springboard to UX demigod.
I was upfront. I told the President that I'd literally just taken a new job and couldn't in good faith bail out on my new employers.
This wasn't as hard as it might sound - I mean, this was a shop where most of the design team had PhDs. There is a big difference between making the President laugh and winning a slot on a team like that.
But mostly, I couldn't stomach the visual of my transformation from charming UX professional to unprincipled toady. Yes, I know I said I had a job already, but I'd ditch that for you. Won't you hire me?
Better to enjoy being briefly well thought of than forever pigeonholed as a synchophant. I offered to pass on the contact info for any UXers I knew in the area. And that was that.
As it turned out, all the UX folks I knew were gainfully and happily employed. I referred Stimpy to him, but I think Stimpy was stabilizing and not looking to jump again.
For the President - it was probably a noon hour shot to hell, but for me - it was amazing. I felt validated as a professional. He called me.
Plus - free lunch!
* * *
I have thought about that afternoon a lot in the past few weeks.
Where I work, there is no open concept anything.
I work in a basement. I scrounge for cast off bits of office furniture in unattended storage closets.
I used to sit in a Herman Miller Aeron - now I have a battered hand-me-down with gum stains.
Every time I grapple with its battered adjustment knobs, I think You chose Nonprofit, pal.
I miss my Aeron.
* * *
Which is not to say the new gig is bad. It is a welcome shift in culture. There is virtually no administrative crap. Schedules are amazingly flexible. The quality of life changes are seriously tangible. Before the kids started school, I was biking to work.
Biking to work!
And the vacation time is quite a thing.
In CorpWorld the PTO barely qualified as terrible. Even after five years, I was getting only 20 days - and one unplanned hospital stay put me in negative PTO for the better part of a year. Which meant no family vacations and E pulling all the kid events and sick days. Which is its own kind of drain on the family. Head down, grinding out time for that future month when you'd get to take a long weekend.
Or... it would be. If they would actually hire me.
I'm on a contract to hire gig - and the initial hire timeline has more than slipped. What was to be two to three months has become seven. And while my boss was upfront that I would be doing some pretty dreary back end stuff starting out - eventually I was supposed to get back to UX.
Except, I haven't.
I spend most days wishing I knew more about Unix. I babysit a slew of scripts and do sysadmin stuff that - while fascinating in its own way - it is definitely not UX.
I like to think I am a patient person - so I've hung in there.
In my dark little office - on my gum-stained chair.
* * *
So, a few weeks ago - I get another one of those recruiter emails.
"Hi, I work for X and I wanted to reach out to you..."
'Reach out to.' This is the current buzz phrase for the cold call contact. Prior to the reflex delete, I can see this one is from a local company that Sensei used to work for. A place I'd applied for during my freefall out of CorpWorld.
I remember I gave this place a resume - and never got so much as an email back.
Six months too late to save the desperate me, they contacted the Nonprofit version of me.
And I wasn't all that sure what the Nonprofit me was thinking about things.
This place was Corporate. Not Fortune 500, but it definitely had a capital C. And in the back of my mind there was this gnawing feeling that my hire at the Nonprofit might be less certain than I'd thought.
It wouldn't hurt to have a plan B.
Old anxieties die hard. I emailed the recruiter.
Step 1 was a phone interview with the UX director. They have a UX director.
I set it up over lunch and took the call on my earbuds while I walked around the lake near work. I felt like an IT commercial.
Um, yes. This is he. What's that sound? Oh, I just thought I'd, you know, walk and talk.
I'm one of those people who are loudly engaged in business discussions in public places. I'm annoying nearby fishermen. This makes me even happier.
The UX Director sounds like he's made his bones in software many times over. He asks me about my design philosophy.
Red Flag? Meet Bull.
Having a job that is not actively hurling me out the door takes a lot of the pressure off an interview. I was free to unload my frustrations and aspirations about the business of making user interface. It didn't hurt to have a blog full of war stories to draw on, either.
I was en feugo. Parables and anecdotes and years worth of pent up ideas on what should happen as opposed to what did happen.
What do I believe...? Hold onto your hat, bud.
I pontificated, I gesticulated, I conquered. Passersby were suitably irritated with me.
But, it felt so good to be asked. I was jubilant.
And then I went back to my office in the basement.
* * *
The following week, I pressed my boss on the status of my being brought on full time. They looked a bit chagrined and said they'd give the process another nudge. Soooo, we're not very far along at all, are we?
The following day, I filled out an online application for the Corporate gig. I figured I might as well see what they are like.
The online app was - I don't think I'm exaggerating here - one of the worst online forms I had seen in years. The gist of it was "Remember that resume you gave us last week? Well, type that same information into the world's crappiest form."
The form was hosted at a company that was different than the Corporate gig, so I felt this was a third party recruiting site. And it stunk on all levels. By the end of the form I wrote a mini screed about how terrible it was. This is what I wrote:
I believe that UX design requires user feedback.
And I would offer some to you:
I want you to know that this application form is among the worst pieces of software I've interacted with in quite a long time.
This web application is like something out of the 90s, and I suspect it is costing you applicants - as well as increasing the likelihood that applicants are submitting erroneous or incomplete information.
It is poorly laid out, excessively long, and requires duplicate entry of required fields.
There are no defaults.
Several fields show a required indicator, when the form area they are contained in is marked optional.
The button to progress through the form is not highlighted and begins its label with "Save."
I could go on, but that is not the purpose of this application.SoooOooo, not so much with the diplomacy. I was feeling a bit too free to express myself. But that's what I wrote. It was a truly crappy form. And it was just the recruiter's website, right?
Shortly after submitting the form - I noticed that the different name was in fact the parent company of the Corporate gig I'd just applied for.
Oh. Well, that was...rash.
But I got the impression that the form was pro forma. Data go in here. Box is checked, then. Proceed to interview.
And a few days later, I found myself following the Google Maps voice over to the west side of town for an in person interview. I had a list of instructions on how to enter the building as well as a detailed check in procedure.
Corporate with a capital C.
There were so many ambient things that screamed CorpWorld! on the way in I doubt I can accurately itemize them. But here's the short list:
The sterile parking garage.
The security cameras.
The neutral corporate art.
The immaculately clean lobby restrooms (Yes, you should always hit the restroom before an interview).
The badge-access security doors.
The "aren't we impressive?" lobby furniture.
And the dizzying array of expensive office gear.
Aeron? Please. We use the Steelcase Leap.
I'm to interview with the entire development team.
Later, we'll video conference with their office on the west coast. I note it's a city that Shadowrun introduced me to, back in the day.
And then they're throwing softballs at me. Four ironclad dev types and one UX guy. I like the developers immediately. They're clearly trying to suss out if I'm one of those design prima donnas. I demonstrate quite convincingly I'm not. I blow through a few war stories that illustrate my get-it-done pragmatism and I try to show a certain amount of humility in design. "We aren't the user - no matter how much we think we are." I share stories of failure, lessons learned and spell out aspirations for what a good design can do for a process.
I make light of my trashing their application form - just in case. They know it's terrible and agree it should be fixed. Score.
The west coast office asks a few questions that amount to "have you done battle with the business over a design."
Um. YES.
I crush that question. I see a lot of nodding heads and shared pain. These are veterans, too. These are good people.
The only low point of the interview is - sadly - the UX guy. He is a design prima donna. One given to using big words to sound special when clear words are all that is needed.
He actually used the phrase "Cognitive Bandages," which - if UX was the VMAs - would be the equivalent of sticking your tongue out and twerking.
You are trying WAY too hard, dude. Seriously.
I believe I struck a good balance between appearing respectful and punking this guy. I felt a few cringes from the dev guys as the UX dude was talking so I suspect this netted me some checks in the plus column.
Veni, vidi, vici, baby.
And then it was handshakes and 'Thank Yous' and I was back outside.
Just sitting in my car - in a Corporate parking garage-
...wondering what the hell I'm doing.
* * *
I remember good things about CorpWorld, I do. Good people. Lots of them. Some skunks, too. But mostly good, smart people doing their best in trying circumstances.
Mostly, though - I remember the fear.
Coming to work on Monday with an all-encompassing dread that this would be the week you got bounced out. Or hearing your home phone ring at night on a Friday and thinking your staffing company was calling to let you go.
I used to tell the FTE's who would get on me about being a consultant: "Y'know when you scan your badge at the door and the door doesn't open? You think the sensor is messed up. I think I've been fired."
Not that CorpWorld canned folks like that, you'd get a call first - but that story says a lot about my state of mind.
You felt privileged, but you were constantly aware it could go away at any time.
* * *
So, I got out. Went Nonprofit. And yet I'm zipping off to the edge of town for another shot to get on the corporate freight train.
Driving back to work after the interview, I was energized. I kept reciting my answers and offering up new ones to imaginary questions all the way back to my current gig.
I slunk back into work like a thief. "An appointment" was what I'd called it. My co-workers asked about the Boy, assuming it was some doctor thing. They're good folks, which makes you feel worse.
About the time the Recruiter sets me up with a phone interview with one of the VPs of the Company, my current Boss starts the machinery rolling to bring me on full time.
I get scheduled for a meeting to go over process and task analysis.
Right on cue.
I nail the phone interview with the VP - they're mostly asking about corporate culture and if I had additional questions. Again, I'm outside walking around when they call. It just seems to work better when I can move around.
Over the next few days, the gears start to grind - slowly - towards what I was promised at the Nonprofit. At a smaller shop, I'll supposedly have more influence on the process. There's less bureaucracy to wade through. But it will never make the papers.
It's a silly thing to be proud of, but every now and then I'll go to the web app I spent so much time on, view the source and call up the CSS file. My name is in the comments. That always makes me smile. My name's not first - nor does it deserve to be - but it's there.
I helped make something. And it works.
At a Nonprofit - that will not happen. The work will be internally focused and there will be no travel, no conferences and no tuition reimbursement. It will be comfortable, flexible, casual even - but it may very well be professional obscurity. Is that a good bargain in the long run? Yeah, kinda.
Corporate gig will be the polar opposite. I won't be a jet setter, but it could very well make a national product and some very real bona fides in UX. Do I want that? Kinda, yeah.
And life is just settling down. E and I are in a good place. The Long Lean Season is over. I'm not sweating getting our taxes paid anymore. I'd looked into the Corporate gig as a backup plan. It was never really supposed to amount to anything.
And on the way home - tonight - the Recruiter calls me. The Corporate gig wants to make me an offer. Tomorrow.
And I am literally lost for an answer.
