In the first week of the pandemic (March 16th to be precise) I was going to give my notice to start a new job. When everyone was quickly sent home in my city, the logistical problem of being in two places at once disappeared. I struggled with conflicting standups for the first week, but eventually I normalized my schedule and just appeared as a busy worker that was hard to book meeting times with.
I do enterprise UX design (focusing on regulated industries versus e-comm) so I typically need to be briefed on a problem, conceptualize a solution, then iterate with folks. I found I do about 5 hours of real, hard work per job per week. Attending a zoom meeting isn't hard work, and shouldn't be counted as such. In fact, I do most of my hard work at 10pm once kids are asleep and I can finally think clearly.
The most I've hustled was doing three 'full-time' jobs (40/hr per week) concurrently. For 5 weeks I was making the equivalent of $650k per year (120 hours per week @ $100/hr), and honestly it was only hard because some folks wanted the precious 10am zoom slot. The hard work was manageable, and ironically I was more focused and thoughtful because the good habits of one job were brought over to correct the bad habits of another. Research on a UX pattern one week would give me the confidence to recommend a solution to another client that made me stand out as 'having my finger on the pulse of what users want'.
If I could be honest with all of the clients, I would have felt better emotionally and perhaps I could suggest some load balancing on user testing and UX patterns.
Only one manager wanted his 40 hours of flesh, but most have been happy judging me on my output and positive attitude since I no longer fear being fired... I will just take on another job.
In the first week of the pandemic (March 16th to be precise) I was going to give my notice to start a new job. When everyone was quickly sent home in my city, the logistical problem of being in two places at once disappeared. I struggled with conflicting standups for the first week, but eventually I normalized my schedule and just appeared as a busy worker that was hard to book meeting times with.
I do enterprise UX design (focusing on regulated industries versus e-comm) so I typically need to be briefed on a problem, conceptualize a solution, then iterate with folks. I found I do about 5 hours of real, hard work per job per week. Attending a zoom meeting isn't hard work, and shouldn't be counted as such. In fact, I do most of my hard work at 10pm once kids are asleep and I can finally think clearly.
The most I've hustled was doing three 'full-time' jobs (40/hr per week) concurrently. For 5 weeks I was making the equivalent of $650k per year (120 hours per week @ $100/hr), and honestly it was only hard because some folks wanted the precious 10am zoom slot. The hard work was manageable, and ironically I was more focused and thoughtful because the good habits of one job were brought over to correct the bad habits of another. Research on a UX pattern one week would give me the confidence to recommend a solution to another client that made me stand out as 'having my finger on the pulse of what users want'.
If I could be honest with all of the clients, I would have felt better emotionally and perhaps I could suggest some load balancing on user testing and UX patterns.
Only one manager wanted his 40 hours of flesh, but most have been happy judging me on my output and positive attitude since I no longer fear being fired... I will just take on another job.