I’m a user experience designer, trying to make the best of my skills and competencies. I work closely with EA Poland, have been working on EA hub and now I’m looking for another volunteer project.
martyna
Karma: 174
Hi Ian, thank you a lot. I would be very curious to learn from our experience. I heard of the improving institutional decision-making concept, you are right it might be very beneficial for people with similar situations to mine. I’ll look into it, and I’ll PM you in a moment!
Oh my, thank you so much for your voice, you’ve outlined the problem very nicely!
Yes, exactly. I volunteer in my local/country - EA PL—within my field of expertise which is UX design. I redesigned our website, and I help with user or even marketing research—but honestly—I can do so much more good with my money donation and climbing the ladder in my profession. I just feel it in my bones—as un-scientifically as it sounds. I even came to the point where I ask myself questions like “Do I volunteer there to actually make any impact, or is it just for me feeling good about doing something”. And usually I don’t like the answer that pops in my head, because I don’t want to abandon my community. But I have only one life, and I want to make the best of it.
So If I can’t/wont change a career I’m happy to accept ETG as my only option, but how to increase impact there? There are so many possible steps, and I have no one to brainstorm about it.
I’m writing “me, me, me” all the time, and the struggle is real, but honestly, I came here to discuss the realm of neglected mature EA’s. Because if they, if we don’t fit into any of high impact jobs, there are no available strategies for us, and no one-fit-all solution most likely. And that leaves us idle, while we could absolutley rock in donations and brining EA to so many different corners of the world.
Hi Devon, it’s great that you had time to respond. I love this initiative! I’ll dive into HIP as soon as I finish my responses.
In terms of constraints—salary level is definitely one of the factors, but not the only one. I can move to the moon and back if needed for the right offer, that’s how mobile I can be. I kind of developed a framework for what I expect from my next job, but companies’ expectations are another story. When you have job, volunteer, have personal duties and obligations it’s hard to even complete the resume, and not to mention career strategy.
I’ll ping you in a moment! Thank you for offering that.
Thank you so much! I didn’t know of HIP, I’ll definitely try it out.
Wow, what a great idea with the group, I would love that. I’m a user experience designer, more of a generalist due to several circumstances. I just found out there is a EA Creatives and Communicators Slack - that’s a start but I’m not a content creator, artist, or communicator, I’m much deeper in corporate IT and I’m aiming at hi-tech companies for a number of reasons. If there would be any UX researchers/designers/writers interested in climbing the ladder of hi-tech IT I would be unspeakably happy to join it!
OK, me back! As for the part about 80k objectives, it’s hard for me to tell. I haven’t done enough research to have an opinion on that matter. But I guess, influencing anyone with EA values gives a lot of positive returns.
“what high-impact roles could be a great fit for you”
- That’s the thing, I don’t fit any of them. I’m a ux/ui designer (I’ll post my links on the bottom) and after 2 years of (let’s call it) research I realized two things:
In those few companies or orgs that ever posted offers for uxd, UX is not necessarily as impactful or even important. It just needs to be as good as to not let “things fall apart”. So, not much impact on the cause area there.
Earning to give makes much more sense. I can still do what I love and am good at, but it comes with this pressure to overexcell myself to give more in near future.
In regards to mentoring others, that’s complicated too. How can I advise others if I can’t even move on with my own goals that I defined so clearly for myself? That’s rhetorical of course. I struggle with impostor syndrome a lot and I’ve been looking for a job more actively since November (I want to move up and upskill). Being declined over and over again doesn’t help with the syndrome. But I’m not saying “no”, only “not now”.
I’ve done some brainstorming with senior IT people, but I’m not very good at cold emailing them, so I haven’t had as many insights as I wish to.
EAG/x—I am signing up for 5 events this year, this is a great way of meeting people smarter than me and in every age!
Thank you a lot @calebp!
Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martynatomaszewska/ - feel free to connect.
https://eahub.org/profile/martyna/ - let me know if it’s available, if not I’ll make it public.
Thank you so much for that, I’ll get back with my response in a few h if you don’t mind.
We need 40,000h or maybe even 20,000h
Thank you kindly, this was very helpful, and my friend is already studying the subject too! :)
As for the causes—I don’t know yet, because we are discussing in metaphors and on quite a high level for now. But he and his wife are vegans, I know animal welfare is crucial to them, so I would risk saying that this area will be his main focus.
However, they might be interested in mitigating poverty/healthcare risk areas too, as they became parents recently, and that changes everything as we know. ;)
AI safety, not sure, we didn’t discuss existential risks yet. I’m not pushing, just responding to questions for now.
You have a valid point, but I guess from my subjective standpoint, it’s much less intimidating to discuss my situation in private rather than in public. I started a general thread and now it would turn into self-help off-topic. Already did a little, bit embarrassing to me.
On the other hand, I think it’s totally reasonable to continue a discussion of supporting mid/senior EA’s with career choices here. Because one-on-ones can help one person. But an actual initiative would help many.
Feel free to PM me too. I’ll be happy to chat, brainstorm, share findings from my discussions too. Whatever you might find useful.