On learning to be my own boss. On being the boss of other people. Having a domineering mother, or older sibling. Birth order studies, interview questions, you won’t know until you’re in the heat, in the thick of it. Family dynamics as they play out in the workplace. Where we come from informs the present, but what about where we’re going?

There are a lot of things I don’t understand.

All four of the women I’ve hired in recent years to be UX Researchers on my team were multi-cultural in some way. One was an immigrant to this country to be educated and had been here for 6 years, was naturalizing and from China, with a degree from Michigan in HCI. One was born here a daughter of Korean Immigrants and raised in LA had been working in agency life, new to the client side. One was straight out of Stanford, from Venezuela and the one I inherited was educated here at Dartmouth but born and raised in Honduras. This is something I find valuable. I’ve lived in countries foreign to me, without mastering the language, in fact, being so lazy and stereotypically American. I got by on restaurant German and lots of body language and tone reading. I have mad respect for people who come to THIS country and work in the way of America, because we are cut throat and mean and we don’t give a shit about you so long as you do your job.

All four of them were great researchers, only one of them thought I was a great boss. I made major rookie mistakes with all of them, I’m only human. Now that I am working for myself, I am the worst boss I have ever had. I hate planning and communicating, I just want stuff to happen on its own, in time. It’s completely unreasonable and I don’t really want to be doing this kind of work anymore, I am bored to tears with it but I have no idea what else to do so I just keep trudging along. Usability Expert. Pah-leese. Anyone can be a usability expert. I am sick of it and only want to do it when it is ridiculously lucrative.

Culturally insensitive comments I made to my multi-cultural staff: She won’t get the jokes. I will have to spend time explaining stupid email chains that go around about movies made in the 80s in America (the breakfast club) that she’s never seen and she won’t get and that’ll be time out of my day that is a waste.

What? My mother just retired from a 30 year career in banking and I am constantly having to explain jokes to her, this team member claimed. She was highly offended about what I’d just said about a Chinese candidate who had not yet lived in the US. I was discriminating, no doubt. Based on Ethnicity and Nationality. This is illegal and she reported me, and we were at a public company. Nine months later I was laid off.