The best place in the world...

"This is the best place in the world" said her eyes and her stature. I wanted to ask how she, 15 years old could know such a thing? Probably having visited about 5 states, the five closest, never seen another country. But she was sure. I could see that in her eyes as the flashed in anger at me. And even so sure that when this strange Swede she had meet in the street said that there where both good and bad things with her city she had no other tool in her tool kit but the stance so often seen in the Ricky Lake Show. Bad things with HER CITY, the best place in the world? She demanded to immediately hear what could possibly be wrong with New York? What?

I encountered a gaggle of young girls in the street when I went to buy my bike. They where open and enthusiastic like youngster but narrow-minded and ignorant like slum dwellers at the same time. Both charming in their straight forwardness and a horrific example to why the USofA does not work.

I was at first a bit surprised by her question or demand to know what I could ever critique in her most adorable NY, the greatest city on earth? I thought it more than a bit rude, but collected my self and pointed to the piece of garbage just beneath us in the street. I actually did not need to say much; I could see in her face that it had disarmed her and she looked a bit ashamed.
There was really nothing else to it, but analysing the situation afterwards I think that she at first was as surprised from my honest answer to her question as I later was from her supplementary question. Her view of the greatest city on earth probably did not hold any room for criticism. Now I was barging in to this world and demanded to put down some "bad things" in her NY. I actually did not. She was the one who asked me what I thought of my new home town? And the rudeness of her demand to know what I possibly could find bad with NY was probably completely warranted by my rudeness of answering honestly when she was just making conversation. Our ways are very different, but this meeting in the street was open and honest even though much to short.

Review 1

I had my first review of my work yesterday or at least we had a stab at it. It was my CD and her boss, the manager for the UX department who sat down with me to talk about what was happening, how things had gone and what was ging to happen in the future. Actually this happened on the third try. The two former dates we had either got rescheduled or used to talk about some project instead.
During the half hour I was among other things informed that they tried to minimize the amount of meeting time that they used. Which I can understand is a goal in it self but also from observation since I now sit more or less next to 2 of the managers of the floor is not happing that much. They are really busy. It is not easy to get to talk to them even a few minutes. I do not envy their work situation, going from meeting to meeting. I am also not the person to barge in. That I have to learn to be.

Now it was my meeting and my performance. I can in retrospect feel that I was all to defensive not actually lifting any of my questions. I do not think that I came across as defensive though. Not that the critique was open enough to be either defensive or constructive about it. There where insinuations that I did not work well enough which of course saddened me since it was the first project that I made directly for this manager and he felt that I was inadequate in this. And that was also the only thing that he focused on since he did not know about my other projects that much. One of them he has seen and that project did more or less change completely once he got involved with it. This was addressed by my CD but I am far from sure that the manager gave a rats ass about it.
So my seven weeks of work boiled down to what had happened the last 2 or 3 days for my manager. The situation looked as follows:
I got called in to redesign the sign up part of a third party store-solution that we will be selling to other clients. I was presented with some sales material from the third party company and given access to an email conversation that contained some admin login from may this year. I started looking in to this and soon discovered that the admin login had failed and could not be used. I asked one of our traffics to help me out and she reached out for a new one. Now 4 days later with one remainder nothing has happened. I learned that I should be screaming and kick harder and louder when I need something. I will not see the insides of that system before I deliver this coming Monday, not ideal, pretty far from it actually. But when I started I thought it would be good but not crucial since I was only redoing the login part, I was to be surprised by the opposite.
The day after start up I worked with different solutions to the login problem, had one meeting early on in the day where I tried to present my findings and also flag that I did not have access to the system. The wires I showed of the information gathering process of the login got it's fair share of critique. I had concentrated on the process and what could be taken away to make the login as slim as possible. The meeting showed that we had to keep all the infringing information gathering but not what I was to learn yesterday.
So I iterated the process and designed a login form for speedy use and branded it in 2 different ways to show how it might look. I then sent review links to my work to both my superiors and hoped to get some feed back. None came and I started to iterate again taking away some rough edges and adding some overlooked features. I then had a different meeting which turned into checking my work. Then I was made aware that not only were I to do the sign up process but also the structuring of all the material in the downloadable database. That was something of a surprise. And since this had been lost in translation on my part because no such material was presented to me and the structuring of the data was never mentioned. I guess this was the point when the manager decided that I was not doing what I should. After that meeting I touched up the sign up page and started on the sorting of data still without any access to the system. Which arguably could be a good thing if you want to remake everything from the start. Which in this instant might just be the right thing to do. I have looked at three different systems and several different versions applications which all look like they where built by the same programmer with no UI considerations.
So I designed a deep sorting system built on a hierarchy staring with genre into which the artists and their music would fit. Before leaving the office as the last person out Friday I sent review links and asked to be instructed. If this will happen remains to be seen. I am trying to do the correct thing from a work perspective as well as not making my self the uncomfortable strange guy. But I am not yet key conscious in this environment. I guess one of my most important goals are to break that code.

On the other hand I think that my CD reached out in a way and addressed different things that had happened during my work and both have a greater understanding of my work but also of the situation that I have been dropped in.

I can help to think about that it was such a struggle to get here and that it was a hassle even for these people and now that I am here I seem to do everything in the wrong way. Do they wish that I had never come? Why did the ask to get a student from Hyper Island when they seem to need a web designer?
The meeting decided that I was to be assigned a senior designer with whom I could bounce the ball and that I was going to get more idea based work since that is what I want. I miss brainstorming with my Hypers.