20 years!
June 1998...I’m 25, married for the last 5 years and my first children, Thomas, is not even 1-year-old. I have just been hired by DRM (now Fujitsu) as a geomatics developer...my first REAL job!
Since then, 20 years have gone by. I have been through a lot of experiences: good and bad ones that forged the UX Designer that I am today. What you will find next are some observations gathered from these 20 years. Observations that could have been interesting to know for the younger me in 1998 at the beginning of this great professional journey.
There is always someone who talks louder and thinks they know everything. Don't spend too much energy to debate since they will always go with their ideas anyway.
Learn to work fast and well...it's worthy!
The measuring unit for recognition seems to be the number of conferences that you have given or articles/books you have written. Not everyone is willing to talk in front of crowds and have the desire to write a book...be cool with that.
Projects that look the coolest are not necessarily cool.
UX covers multiple fields: writing, research, design, testing. Employers really like to put it all in a big basket, and they think that the UX guy is interested and want to be involved in everything. Sorry but it's not the case, UX unicorns touches all but excels in nothing. You must know what can be done in every field, but choose one and don't be shy to tell them which one you're the best in.
The final decision is ALWAYS in the hands of the client even if you tell them it's a bad decision they will force it into your throat.
Ego is bad for your health, it makes you uncomfortable with your colleagues and makes positive interactions difficult. You're not better than anyone, it's a teamwork business, be kind and work well with others.
For some, if it has not already been done by someone else it is not valid. The gut feeling and the experience gained for so many years are not enough.
Yes, the ultimate goal is to be able to test everything but the reality is that it happens not so often, unfortunately. I know that you're not really into talking to people but be good at building testing scenarios and find the extrovert in your team to carry out the tests.
People will approach you on LinkedIn. They will say that they are very interested in your experience. You will answer their request and then you won't have any news at all from them. They're assh*&$%!
You won't have many regrets about your professional life, except not having persisted with Kazar Creation (with your friend Johnny)! Who knows where it could be today. Bad timing!
Another one, not to have considered from the beginning to put money aside for retirement. Start early if you don't want to work until you're 80 and pass the information to your kids!
At a certain point in your career, you feel you're ready to move onto higher position (and different tasks) because you don't know if you want to do the same tasks for the next 3-5-10-30 years. But it's all about timing because opportunities are not legions. And sometimes hiring managers cannot properly pin down unrelated experience. You'll reach this point after 20 years :)
Photo by Feri Lukas http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-loneliness-killing-us