So I've alluded to the fact that I'm somewhat less enamored of my job than I have been in the past. To clarify a bit, I used to be user-focused -- it was my job to make sure that I understood who was using our end product and how to make it the best possible experience for them. That all changed post-vacation. I came back and was told that with my new clients, I was focused on the business. As in how to make them more money.
OK, fine. I understand that they have to make money or they can't pay us and if they don't pay us, I don't have a job. But this new "focus on the business" aspect is insane. I guess if I was an MBA, I might have more respect for it. But what it means to me is that I'm no longer involved in the work. I feel like I'm actually doing meta work -- you know work about the work. I feel like all I do these days is create frameworks to talk about talking about the work. And argue with other people about them. At length.
The problem is that at the end of the day, the frameworks are useless. I've been in the trenches and I know what the people doing the actual work really need. And it's not a bunch of charts and boxes describing the approach. Oh sure, we present them and argue about them and finally agree about them. But what happens then? They languish unused on the server while the writers, designers and IAs are scrambling to get the information they truly need to get the job done.
So there it is. When I was first presented with this, I thought I could handle it a bit like the Comedian from Watchmen, albeit without the napalm, guns and blowtorch. He saw the world for what it was and because he thought he was the only one who got the joke, he made himself into a parody of the world. I thought I could do the same thing -- I get that it's all a joke, and I do get paid for it, so why not just have fun and laugh quietly to myself while I'm earning a paycheck. But it turns out that the joke's on me. Doing this for 10+ hours a day plus traveling almost every week to talk about it with people who actually take this seriously is destroying my soul.
I go on vacation in exactly a week and I think I'll use that time to search what's left of my soul to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Who knows? Maybe I'll come up with a framework for it.
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3 comments:
Ah, you have my sympathy. There's a little extra heartbreak added when they take a job you liked and corrupt it into something you despise.
Follow your heart before they stomp on it any more.
You are so amazingly valuable that I would love to work with you and for you somewhere else. I don't know what that looks like, but I know talent when I see it, and you've got it, baby,
I'm here to assure you that there are better days ahead and you are already on the road to a new discovery. You've already come farther than you even think, and you're closer than you know to great change.
Keep going, keep going.
Thanks, guys! I so appreciate the kind works. Mamma Mia -- I would love to work with you again, too!
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