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Lots of thoughts for ya:
How long has your manager been a manager? Sometimes great designers aren’t great managers—it sucks but it’s true. It’s possible your manager is learning how to fill the role they’re in themselves and that’s partially why you feel confused. Not fair to you but calling it out as a possibility.
Is this your first job in an agency environment? Agency is interesting because individual clients have individual problems and super different ways of working. Client management is a big part of a design role, and so is being anticipatory and getting in front of requests. If this is your first agency role, it definitely takes time to get acclimated. It’s a very unique environment!
It’s not a terrible idea to manage ‘up’ here and proactively go to your manager and say, hey I’m feeling a bit off from our review. Or, hey I realized I have a few questions about the review we had, can we set time to further discuss? Confrontation can be hard even for managers, try opening the door a bit or even take ownership proactively next time something happens where you feel you didn’t meet expectations and say, hey project/scenario X was challenging for me for Y reason. I had trouble anticipating last minute changes. Because I’m new, I need help prioritizing XYZ next time. Or, i need help prioritizing these 5 things the client wants. Or I’m not sure where to push this work. It’s totallly okay to say ‘I need support here
Or, turn your weaknesses into growth opportunities. Proactively go to your manager after a review that goes kinda sideways and say (in the nav update example you have) hey, I wasn’t prioritizing having components in my Figma file. I realized that wasn’t an efficient choice so moving forward / on the next project that’s something i will set up from the beginning. I guess my advice is to see if there are opportunities to call out your own learning opportunities and identify the opportunity for improvement.
I will say, you should be using components literally as MUCH as possible whether they’re required by client/project or not ;) that should be standard practice.
Does your agency have an outlined career matrix? It’s basically a series of all the design job titles and then the associated categories of responsibilities (with descriptions) like, strategy, vision, client management, UX skills, visual design skills, etc. Reviews often feel squishy if you don’t know what your actual responsibilities boil down to and what you’re being measured against. It’s so so helpful to have that criteria.
Side note, agency burn out is so so real ESPECIALLY if there isn’t a good structure, support system or process in place. And trust among your team and coworkers is big, too. But also 30 days, you are still soooo new. As time goes on you will learn and get adjusted and so will your manager and team!
Oh my goodness this is such a kind comment 🥲 I would loove to be a mentor or career coach; I have absolutely thought about it before. I should perhaps consider it more seriously 👀
isn’t that weird? I got the impression maybe he thought my skills were lacking and wanted to cross reference stuff? but he should’ve done that before I had the offer. anyways, I’m kinda bummed because I thought I was doing great, but agency life is leaving me burned out already.
What we’re the actual feedback on your work? Is it the design output not matching the client’s expectations or is it speed?
Ahh, would it help if you work more closely with the account manager so they’re part of the design process. That way, you remove last minute changes since they’re part of building the design.