- The Last Two Weeks
- Posts
- I don’t like my job
Artwork by John Holcroft
I’ve been a design manager for a year now and I’m still trying to figure out how much I enjoy it.
As with many jobs, I’m drawn towards certain parts and have to put more effort into others. Some days I leave work feeling like I’ve nailed this whole management thing, and others leave me feeling like a complete fraud.
Last month while chatting with a friend who’s been in management positions for a while, I asked how they approach some of the less glamorous parts of the job. To my surprise, they shared that even they don’t like every part of the job.
It felt like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.
It made me feel less alone to hear someone so accomplished admit that even they have to put effort into some aspects of their role. I began to realize it’s ok if I’m not super enthusiastic about every part of being a design manager.
If you’re feeling something similar as you move from maker to manager, you’re not alone.
For example, here’s a non-exhaustive list of my responsibilities and how I’m currently handling them:
Things that come naturally
Coaching, mentoring, sponsoring (they are different things)
Career development
Cross-functional partnerships
Leading meetings
Creative and product direction
Things I’m getting better at
Commercial thinking and competitive landscape
Performance reviews
Managing underperformance
Difficult conversations
Things I need to work on
Long meetings
Contributing to planning
Being a product designer involves a range of skills and it’s impossible to master them all. The same applies to management. We don’t need to be the best at everything to be good at the job overall.
If you’re having similar thoughts, hang in there. You’re not alone… and you’re probably doing better than you think.
🧶 Stray Links
Erin Anne Lynch’s wrote about what it feels like to be unemployed. I love her honest, straightforward tone about her experience job-hunting, interviewing, and everything that happens in between. A great read for everyone.
I’ve been reading a lot on hiring lately. Ally Mexicotte wrote a wonderful piece on how she hires designers at a startup and Rian van der Merwe offers a few tips for current job seekers. ICYMI I recently wrote about how I interview product designers.
Stay Saasy wrote another great article about managing high performers. “High performers can often make your life much easier and handle all sorts of problems. If you forget about them while you’re dealing with other problems, however, you’ll wake up one day to find their resignation letter. This is one of the ways for you yourself to become a low performer.”
I loved this article on process, when it’s helpful and when it’s not.
If you need another reason to 🇺🇸 Vote Blue 🇺🇸, Trump vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden's environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted if elected.
Private citizens are suing their governments and big companies for environmental wrongdoing. It’s not nearly enough but you love to see it.
What’s going on over there? Microsoft’s emissions have increased 29% since 2020 attributed to the AI boom and safety-minded employees are leaving OpenAI in droves.
Even though the web is increasing becoming dominated by a small number of huge mega-corps, the web is not dying. After all, webrings still exist!
🏛️ From the Archives
A favorite article I periodically re-read
The Art of Winning An Argument: We spend a lot of our lives trying to convince or persuade others to our point of view. This is one of the reasons that Daniel Pink says that we’re all in sales
Jobs from teams I admire
Dialpad is hiring product designers, engineers, and marketers (including my team!). Reply if you’re interested!
An ex-coworker is looking for freelancers on an ongoing basis to handle a bit of everything: web dev, web design, project mgmt, copywriting, SEO, advertising mgmt, social media mgmt, CRM administration. If any of that resonates, please ping him on LinkedIn and tell him Ted sent you :)
Thanks for reading ✌️
- Ted (@tedgoas)