Sweating it out

Wow. Virginia is sooooo humid. I don’t remember it being so hot! Above is my usual view in the evenings but not so much lately. Last year I was getting 100 miles a week and now I’m lucky if it’s above 30 miles in a month.

Last year was different though. I was content in my job and focusing on racing in NoCal. I was doing alright too with a few podium finishes. But that wasn’t enough. I needed to fulfill my work life with something, the same way that biking does in my personal life.

I’ve been working as a graphic design manager at an ecommerce company for almost 10 years. I was enjoying what I was doing but something was missing. I knew 2016 was the year that a change was going to be made (I even added a comment like this in my annual review — so it was official!), but what was the change going to be? That was the question I’ve been asking myself for a few years now. I knew I liked graphic design, but it wasn’t fulfilling my needs, so I started googling topics with my skill sets and passions. I came across something called UX. At first, I had no idea what that was or even what that acronym stood for. I was like, I’ll come back to this.

The googling continued for days… weeks… months and UX kept popping up. I thought to myself, I really need to see that this UX thing is. As I read more about UX, I knew that this was what I’ve been searching for! Every aspect of UX, from researching to analyzing to wireframing, made me excited. I knew this was the field I wanted to get into.

The icing on the cake to pursue UX was when I was on vacation in Dominica to swim with sperm whales— yep, like actually in the water with them! I went with my fiancée and there were 2 others on our boat. One of them was the VP of the UX department for Netflix. As he explained what he did, his passion for it, and how he got into it, I knew then and there I was going to get into UX. As much as I enjoyed being on vacation, I couldn’t wait to get back home to start my new career path.

This is where my story ends but my journey begins. Instead of sweating it out on the bike, I’m sweating it out in the classroom at General Assembly DC. Week 00 is almost over and week 01 begins on Monday. We’ll see what the future holds, but whatever it is, as long as I’m a UX designer, it’ll be alright.