How we took thing for granted easily – a work related thoughts

Some years ago, I took on the challenge of joining a company I used to think I would never join. The company's culture wouldn't fit with my working ways. In addition, the design principles are not yet at the level I expect; the design team is small and often finds it hard to protect their ideas or even propose what they think is good. However, I chose to join. I challenged myself to make a change to this company by injecting what I called an actual UX process into a heavy engineering mindset team.

I started with a careful and steady approach. Still, I failed after 6 months of shouting and showing about design, UX, or a user-centered mindset. So I re-did everything, reflected on what had been done, and looked for another way to work on the challenge.

After all, I could finally establish a design team, hire a few more people, and land some foundational activities. Though not all things I did were correct. Still, they were more of stepping stones to help raise the voice of the design team. They could finally be more involved in the product ideation phase and work more like a product designer than someone making beautiful UIs.

Then, however, there were management changes, and my supervisor left the company. After that, I found it hard to continue my plan, so I left the company. My legacy was still there, but I tried my best to prepare for my leaving. I talked to the other supervisor and asked them to continue sponsoring the design team. I found a new job and continued on my journey of building a design-driven culture for product teams.

Recently, I got a chance to revisit this company, I met the current design team, and we did a small sharing session together. Here I watched how the new designer fixed my legacy, what was wrong, and how he did better than my approach. A friend of mine texted me during the session, saying: "Don't feel bad about it!" – I didn't. On the contrary, I was happy they could finally improve it, even though it was not based on where I left off. It was a fun session, after all. I went home and got back to my work.

For a while now, thinking back about this story. I have a different thought. Actually, I did feel a little bad and uncomfortable. I think, what if it was not me who took the challenge of joining the company and tried and failed and repeated until we could, at least, have the space to lay down some foundational works, even if it was not the right way. Still, it could show the following designers who joined later, what has been tried, and what already went wrong. Our work in the past also proved to top management the importance of a design team and why they should sponsor us so that others can continue and make it even better.

I am feeling like an old Asian man. Like how our older generations often talk about how they fought so hard for what we have now, we didn't appreciate their difficulties and sweat. Am I becoming harsh and picky about these things? I don't have an answer to that.

But I do have another answer. It is more about appreciation of other works. It would be better to appreciate and understand how others have found ways to help us get here. As for me, I still appreciate and am thankful for the better result of the other designer and how they have made my vision come true. As important as being a designer, a little empathy and appreciation would be great for us.