Friday exhale — 1/28/22
Check check, is this thing on?
Yeah, that was dumb, sorry. But for real it’s a first post and you have to start it somehow?
I’m starting to see the differences between this and a blog — I started this with the idea of sharing random thoughts in time, but I’m starting to realize that would be annoying for everyone. So thanks for hanging tight while I figure out the format a bit, and start off with a good old fashioned week in review.
Today’s wordle: BREAK
Don’t worry this isn’t actually the wordle spoiler. Some of you may know I just recently came off of paternity leave. I learned a TON and changed a ton, but really I just want to communicate how impactful simply taking an extended break from “work” was to my mental state. (sidenote: I must have really been fucked for paternity leave to feel like a break. maybe it was more of a total mental reboot?)
I am lucky enough to work at a company that provides fairly significant secondary caregiver benefits (5 weeks…please don’t take this opportunity to argue whether that’s enough or not, not the point). I am also lucky enough to work at a company that actually lets you take that time off. I seriously did not open slack or check my email (except once to receive heaps of praise and congratulations and then another time because wow after four weeks the fomo is real).
Even though I was leaving to take care of a completely dependent proto-being, this complete mental shift brought me back excited, energized, and I genuinely think a better leader (though that part might have been the 3x full Ted Lasso series binges…one for us, one for my wife’s parents, one for mine). The first thing I did when I got back was bang out a 13 page strategic document outlining a design vision for the next 2 years. I can’t promise it was good, but I can promise you I did not have that perspective or energy prior.
Now, I can’t promise you those results from a long break…maybe you’ll take one and come back just as tired as before…and maybe that’s a sign you should be switching gigs. What I can say is — if you have the ability, take a fucking break. After the last few years under covid and all of the challenges out there trying to make great things happen — and especially if you’re someone trying to hire designers in this market 😓 — it will do you (and your peers) a world of good.
Ok, that’s all I got. Not quite a Lasso quality booster speech, but maybe someday? #BELIEVE
Interesting stuff from this week —
Taylor Swift as classic physics textbooks — I don’t know any of these books, but the pairings are :chefs-kiss:
AirPods Pro 2 may be stem-less? — I’ve been holding out replacing my dead AirPods gen1 for these so this excites me. I am only bummed by the continual push back on release date 😅. It’s all rumors, sure, but Q4 gives me some real impatient feels. #firstworldproblems
Fuck McMinn County — If you’re banning a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the holocaust because it doesn’t “reflect the values of the community,” then you’re really just saying you’re a bunch of Nazis, right?
For some reason Adobe still thinks design contests are a good thing
Glossier lays off 80 employees — What surprises me here is that it’s primarily tech staff. For a co known for pioneering in DTC, seems weird to me that it’s platform staff getting the cut. To be fair, I really know nothing about their business, and maybe they were taking on too much at the platform level (always a good thing to use partners on infra if you can…they can probably do it better than you)…but my spidey-sense views this in context of their recent boom in brick-and-mortar as a move towards becoming just another retail brand. Time will tell!
Thanks again for reading! Later —
Adam