I can't stand the heat, should I get out of the kitchen?
April 21, 2013 8:02 AM Subscribe
Is the weight of expectation and pace of change making my web career untenable?
I started working for a 'new media' agency in 1999. Since then I've mostly worked in web publishing and content management. I've seen a lot of systems come and go. I'm now a team leader for a content/production team and I'm getting to serious burnout.
My biggest problem is that 'web publishing' is now such a broad remit it's impossible to keep up with everything I'm expected to understand on behalf of my organisation. I'm heavily involved in strategic and operational activities around technical development, specification, functional and UX requirements and testing, intricacies of search and analytics, optimisation, data management, CMS and server architecture, UGC and community management, CRM integration, social media, privacy, video and audio production and streaming, standard editorial, content strategy and maintenance, e-communications, cross-sell, extranet-type network and DMS platforms and online application and payment actions - oh and I'm supposed to be on top of all the crowd-based alternatives for anything that may be proposed internally. As well as actually running the high-profile, fast-moving, high-traffic site my team is actually responsible for.
I can't cope with trying to keep up. Every week I'm drawn into a lengthy series of questions/decisions about problems with features or services that I'm expected to understand and have an opinion on and I'm about ready to scream. My immediate boss, whilst lovely and supportive, is from old school press and has no background in digital platforms but there is a huge appetite in our org for 'modernity' and my team is expected to enable it all. As the 'friendly' face of web we're also the de facto translators between PMs, BAs, business owners and the IT team. It's completely exhausting.
My original motivator for working in web was about shaping the message and I'm still interested in that, but I'm bogged down in endless requirements, policy-making, standards development and governance - and it's all impossible to keep hold of because the technology moves so fast. I feel I'm constantly trying to hold up against a Tsunami of 'services' that promise amazing things but result in unworkable systems with processes that I'm expected to understand and fix - because I 'know web'.
I did think maybe it's just my current place so I've been applying for other, similar jobs and even had a couple of offers but when it came down to it they just looked like more of the same and I couldn't face going ahead. I used to love having a broad view but now I think I'm fundamentally unsuited to the pace and breadth of it and I need to look at other options before the cracks start to show.
So my question is: is this the reality for being a front end web manager? Are there non-developer specialisms with fewer expectations, and if so how do I reposition myself for those roles without heading for obsolescence as systems inevitably move on?
I started working for a 'new media' agency in 1999. Since then I've mostly worked in web publishing and content management. I've seen a lot of systems come and go. I'm now a team leader for a content/production team and I'm getting to serious burnout.
My biggest problem is that 'web publishing' is now such a broad remit it's impossible to keep up with everything I'm expected to understand on behalf of my organisation. I'm heavily involved in strategic and operational activities around technical development, specification, functional and UX requirements and testing, intricacies of search and analytics, optimisation, data management, CMS and server architecture, UGC and community management, CRM integration, social media, privacy, video and audio production and streaming, standard editorial, content strategy and maintenance, e-communications, cross-sell, extranet-type network and DMS platforms and online application and payment actions - oh and I'm supposed to be on top of all the crowd-based alternatives for anything that may be proposed internally. As well as actually running the high-profile, fast-moving, high-traffic site my team is actually responsible for.
I can't cope with trying to keep up. Every week I'm drawn into a lengthy series of questions/decisions about problems with features or services that I'm expected to understand and have an opinion on and I'm about ready to scream. My immediate boss, whilst lovely and supportive, is from old school press and has no background in digital platforms but there is a huge appetite in our org for 'modernity' and my team is expected to enable it all. As the 'friendly' face of web we're also the de facto translators between PMs, BAs, business owners and the IT team. It's completely exhausting.
My original motivator for working in web was about shaping the message and I'm still interested in that, but I'm bogged down in endless requirements, policy-making, standards development and governance - and it's all impossible to keep hold of because the technology moves so fast. I feel I'm constantly trying to hold up against a Tsunami of 'services' that promise amazing things but result in unworkable systems with processes that I'm expected to understand and fix - because I 'know web'.
I did think maybe it's just my current place so I've been applying for other, similar jobs and even had a couple of offers but when it came down to it they just looked like more of the same and I couldn't face going ahead. I used to love having a broad view but now I think I'm fundamentally unsuited to the pace and breadth of it and I need to look at other options before the cracks start to show.
So my question is: is this the reality for being a front end web manager? Are there non-developer specialisms with fewer expectations, and if so how do I reposition myself for those roles without heading for obsolescence as systems inevitably move on?
Fatbird has the right response, but I will add that in my experience, it would take an entire team just to refute all the shiny pie-in-the-sky spammy promises that the dog-in-charge gets in their email every day. If the one in charge doesn't really have a firm grasp of what is actually feasible / reasonable / legal / ethical / ridiculously unrealistic, they can easily be misled by smoove salespeople... who will eventually fuck up their system, cause them to lose clients and staff, and leave them thousands and thousands of dollars poorer for the experience, plus probably get them blacklisted by search engines, and even (easily!) at risk of breaking federal or state laws.
If you don't know who is behind the claims, it's sort of hard to say "well, hey, look at their client from a year / two years ago – go ahead, call them up and see what their experience was"... and a lot of these outfits change their company names as easily as the rest of us change our underwear.
I don't know how to solve this problem, but it's a big problem that a lot of companies have lost a great deal of time, money, reputation, goodwill, customers, and valuable staff to. But, what fatbird said. If the boss doesn't know, then s/he needs more staff to research all that stuff. The people who are doing the actual work can't also fight magical unicorns who will increase sales by eleventybillion% while reducing costs to less than 99ยข a day! (exaggerating, but only slightly.)
posted by taz at 10:08 AM on April 21, 2013
If you don't know who is behind the claims, it's sort of hard to say "well, hey, look at their client from a year / two years ago – go ahead, call them up and see what their experience was"... and a lot of these outfits change their company names as easily as the rest of us change our underwear.
I don't know how to solve this problem, but it's a big problem that a lot of companies have lost a great deal of time, money, reputation, goodwill, customers, and valuable staff to. But, what fatbird said. If the boss doesn't know, then s/he needs more staff to research all that stuff. The people who are doing the actual work can't also fight magical unicorns who will increase sales by eleventybillion% while reducing costs to less than 99ยข a day! (exaggerating, but only slightly.)
posted by taz at 10:08 AM on April 21, 2013
I recognize myself in your post. I was a web developer for seven years and worked in content management for 6. I was once on a two year project that took three because of a whiz bang technology change right in the middle. I can't go back to being a web developer because the realities of that world sucked all the desire out of me. Completely. Sadly.
You might find some gems in this old AskMe on the perils of being the "office brain" that could help you manage your boss's expectations. I agree that a bigger team is needed - people are often surprised that one person can't be designer/coder/production artist/QA person and need some education on that.
I do think that every technical person reaches the point where they can't know anymore than they already do. I'm reading a book called Close to the Machine that describes this feeling. It was written by a software engineer. Don't try to cope with keeping up because it's not possible, and it's OK too :-)
If you feel like you are on the road to burnout, it's possible that you already. Don't forget to take care of yourself!
posted by Calzephyr at 10:30 AM on April 21, 2013
You might find some gems in this old AskMe on the perils of being the "office brain" that could help you manage your boss's expectations. I agree that a bigger team is needed - people are often surprised that one person can't be designer/coder/production artist/QA person and need some education on that.
I do think that every technical person reaches the point where they can't know anymore than they already do. I'm reading a book called Close to the Machine that describes this feeling. It was written by a software engineer. Don't try to cope with keeping up because it's not possible, and it's OK too :-)
If you feel like you are on the road to burnout, it's possible that you already. Don't forget to take care of yourself!
posted by Calzephyr at 10:30 AM on April 21, 2013
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I'm working on a big site right now where several people have the title "content manager". In practice, this is drudgery to do with creating assets for the website and co-ordinating rollout of those assets with other media. No one would dream of asking those people about other technologies while expecting an authoritative answer.
That said, I suspect you're giving vastly more authoritative answers than are required by the questions. If people who don't know the web are asking these questions, they'll likely be satisfied with either deflection ("I'll look into that for you") or very simply overview statements ("It's a service so users can subscribe to a feed of headlines") or delegation ("That's SEO, for which we use a consultant, so I'll get the details from her").
You sound like you're in an understaffed role, frankly. That's the problem, not the nature of your job.
posted by fatbird at 8:43 AM on April 21, 2013 [2 favorites]