Dear The Client

The Author is still alive, but fully employed. For almost exactly one year. The Medium Large Company is one I actually like. It does a decent amount of Good in The World, and as far as I can tell, not a ton of Evil. The bits of Evil—which are genuinely sucky social injustices to marginalized communities (but not the ones you’re thinking) are “we are following orders in a federally regulated environment.” It’s not perfect in that regard, but it’s a lot better than most unless you go off the grid and start farming algae and foregoing showers, neither of which I’m planning until at least 2021 when The Great Orange Beast with Tiny Hands turns off the lights in the world with his nuclear codes and daddy issues.

Back to The Newish Company: I don’t have a ton of smack talk at the moment. There’s all the usual shit you expect at a larger company, and some of the dolly shit you encounter at a smaller company too (I’m looking at you, The Product Manager, who likes that our group operates “like a start up” which just means I haven’t yet called you out publicly for saying silly shit like “the design team can’t be trusted to make decisions” with a fake smile... we will have a reckoning, oh yes we will), BUT it’s mostly good.

If you want to survive and thrive as a full timer, sometimes you need to rewrite the narrative (and scenery and dialog and and and) around you, use noise canceling headphones, pick your battles, and generally work on your positivity.

I may drop in occasionally if I find something funny or noteworthy that needs to be aired in an hyperbolic way, but for the most part, I’m putting this on ice while I allow myself to fall in love with The Company (or at least the good group of people I work with and my immediate team) and give it a college go.

It only took a year. I don’t have trust issues, your face has trust issues!

Do not tempt me with your cushy shuttle 4 blocks from my house and fun corporate culture demanding I bring my whole self to work and on site all the things. But if you’d like to fluff me with more discussion of your #2 highest pay in the valley, I’m all wallet. I mean ears.

Love, The Designer Who Is Still Looking For FTE And Swore He’d Never Work In The Valley Again

Dear The Client’s Program Manager

We are helping to build a consolidated roadmap for all of your business verticals. This isn’t about pinning you down, we just need it to help us take another look at the design project prioritization. We would like 30 minutes or less!) of your time so you can show us where you roadmap is, and let us know if there’s anything weird about it. We will take it from there, do a thing, and come back to you with questions and include you on the final artifact. Thank you! The Designers

From: The Client’s Program Manager To The Designers CC: The Client’s Engineering Manager Subject: Re: Can we see your roadmap pretty plz?

Dear The Designers

Who are you? I’m not comfortable with this request, or computers, or clouds that look sinister. I have included The Engineering Manager who will surely be able to answer your questions which are stupid, hurtful, and confusing. What day is it? Love, The Program Manager

From: The Client’s Engineering Manager To: The Designers and The Client’s Program Manager CC: 4 random people Subject: Re: Re: Can we see your roadmap pretty plz?

Dear The Designers and The Program Manager

This is confusing. I literally don’t know what you’re asking for or if I am wearing underwear right now. Matches smell like burning. FLIBBERTY GIBBET. I LIKE TURTLES!!!!!1! I have cc’d 4 random people. You’re welcome! Cheers! The Engineering Manager

From: The Designers To: The Client’s Program Manager, The Client’s Engineering Manager, and 4 random people Subject: Re: Re: Re: Can we see your roadmap pretty plz?

Great. Calendar Invitation Attached. Looking forward to a short and productive meeting! Love, The Designers

At the meeting, only 3 random people showed up. The Client’s Program Manager and Engineering Manager were nowhere to be seen. Of the 3 random people, 1 stayed on mute the entire time, even when asked direct questions, one might have been snoring, and the last one tried to answer our questions, but had no idea what any of this was about.

Me: tell me more about that?

TPO: well, it's like the pinnacle.

Me: for who?

TPO: mumble mumble something heteronormative brotastic.

Me: what if we called it "Fasting for an orgy, DP , and then going home to eat an entire pizza in a pink faux fur onesie?" That's the pinnacle for me.

It has been a pleasure helping you explore requirements by visualizing your every random thought. This entirely valid product development methodology is most effective if 1) its clear at the start of the project we are doing that, instead of working against what other product managers might call “actual requirements,” and 2) if you have that kind of cheddar lying around.

It was especially rewarding to help you visualize an interface enabling users to accurately self-identify into several subtly different but legally complicated and necessary categories, only to discover you were only going to support one type of user. About 80 hours of rewarding in fact.

Math is hard, but I’ll be clear in my invoice.

"Are you coming in to the office for this meeting today?” 

That’s a great question, I really appreciate he opportunity to answer that.

I did not arrange to come into the office today, for any reason, such as “Can you please come into the office for a meeting on date.” If I had planned to, several people would know about it. You asking if I am coming in and getting several “No, he didn’t plan to come in today” answers should have been your first clue. No, wait. Asking me if I was planning to come in first, instead of asking everyone else should have been your first clue.

But that’s just me [Insert gif of pissy kermit sipping tea... make that Lipton tea. Which is awfully pedestrian tea for a pissy little frog.]

From Home As Planned With No Deviations, The Consultant

We are not amused by your Sunday 3am (before the last day of testing) streams of consciousness on the InVision prototype, with literally 80 hours left on this project. We are so out of time that I don’t even have time to couch this shit in sarcasm. JUST STAAAAAHHHHHHHP.

We would like to take a moment and thank you the feedback you’ve brought to the table. Too often, it’s difficult to get our clients to engage in the process and offer timely feedback.

Not you, sir. I can breathe easy knowing that I will wake up to a fresh cup of thoughtfulness every single morning. It is clear that you’ve turned your anxiety disorder into your killer feature, staying awake every single night for two weeks to review the day’s updates to our user testing prototypes. 

Moreover, the vivid, lush, epic—and I do mean that in the literative sense—yet almost Kerouac-ian prose you generate, not just occasionally, but for every single word and call to action, no matter how long or how few characters, is peerless.

I hope you you’ve iced up those fingers and slammed an eigthball of speed today, sir, because we are raring to go. In fact, I’ve cleared my weekend for the explicit purpose of printing your InVision comments out on silky heavy weight paper, spreading them all over my bed, and rolling around in them in the probably vain hope of picking up just the merest hint of your attention to irrelevant detail.

Awefully yours, The Designer 

We are creating a supplementary information gathering application that depends on accurate data sourced from a primary “Source of Truth.” If you believe this information is inaccurate, it needs to be solved and managed by “The Source of Truth,” and not in our world.

You know how cats have an innate sense of all the crazy cat ladees (gender non-specific) in the room who would literally quit their jobs and bury their faces in noogywoogumspreciouscatbellehs ALLDAYLONG4EVA if they could get away with it?

And how they also instantly pinpoint the most deathly feline allergic person in the room?

And how they saunter right past the cray cat ladees, hop on the sneezing eye-swollen wheezing schmuck and rub their filthy little buttholes all over that person’s hive blistered face?

FYI, this time of year is all about gay street festivals—naked, musclebound, leather and sports gear adorned pornstached daddies running hither and yon literally ripe for the picking—and here you are needing all the work right this effing minute.

I hate you.

Dear The Client

Your “simple form”—subject to multiple state, federal, and DHS regulations—is about 200 data fields long, much of which is text entry.

Do I think we should go with a “mobile first approach?”

Sometimes it’s ok to put a line on your page, for, you know, when your post-modern, post-comprehension, hierarchy-free user interface falls on it’s face.

I am looking forward to our 4 hour whiteboard session. Via Skype meeting. That sounds really productive. Are pants required?