I will begin with a one sentence summary of paddling down the Au Sable River: I will absolutely be going back for longer trips, probably even this season.
Needless to say, I enjoyed the trip.
Monthly Archives: July 2016
You Get What You Pay For
One of the lessons that I find to be simultaneously essential to learn and incredibly difficult to teach is an idea that I refer to by the shorthand “being a consultant”–the notion of saving the customer from themselves.
Paul Sherman’s amazing presentation “The UX Unicorn is Dead” (if you haven’t read it, stop reading this and go read that) highlights an excellent opportunity to save the customer from themselves: customers asking to forgo UX or QA work (or, in some horrifying instances UX and QA work) in exchange for a lower price or faster timeline.
You get what you pay for.
July Kayamping Trip
Next weekend, I’m going on a 3-day, 2 night kayak-camping (kayamping) trip down the Au Sable River near Grayling, MI. The plan:
Stepping Down
This post was originally going to be posted once the formal announcement of the change it describes was announced at work. Having been laid off mid-month, that announcement will never come, but I consider the concepts to be important enough to post anyway.
I resigned from my managerial role today.
Actually, it is more accurate to say that at the beginning of this month, I gave notice that I would be stepping down from my managerial role by month’s end. Today, that resignation simply became official. [Edit: Plus or minus a little…]
Heterosexual Pride Day
It appears that the sort of folks that always have to find a way to make everything about them (AllLivesMatter, anyone? NotAllMen right a bell?) have gotten #HeterosexualPrideDay trending on social media. At this point, it’s hard to muster anything more severe than disappointment in such a predictable set of actions.
Rather than get upset, since my upset is going to accomplish nothing productive, I’m choosing to observe Heterosexual Pride Day in my own way. I invite you to join me.
I choose to recognize that while there are zero states in which I can be fired for being heterosexual, you can still be fired for not being heterosexual in more than half of the states in our country. I take pride that it isn’t 100%, while continuing to do what I can to make it 0%.
I choose to take pride in the fact that while heterosexual people can assume that they will get joint custody of their children when they separate, it is only now becoming a possibility in some states. I recognize that we have a long way to go in order to resolve that disconnect.
I choose to be proud of the fact that there are increasing numbers of non-heterosexual people in the media that are not stereotypes, while still remembering to call it out when I hear someone referred to as “gay” or “faggy” for being different or for enjoying hobbies traditionally associated with the opposite gender.
I choose to recognize the fact that, while I can take pride in the fact that we have come a long way in terms of gay marriage, there are still states in which it is not legal.
This is how I choose to celebrate Heterosexual Pride Day; to take pride in how far things have come while recognizing how terribly far we have to go. #heterosexualprideday