Should I quit a job that I'm grappling after committing verbally?

August 29, 2020 12:03 PM

I want to quit web design job in an industry I barely grasp (insurance benefits startup) and am clearly struggling with. Should I break a verbal commitment I made for two more more months of work?

I have been doing mid and senior level product design for smaller and early-stage startups for 10+ years.

I have never struggled with the subject matter of a job (often music, media, photo/video, etc), I always hit deadlines, people like the designs and UI I do. And tend to like me as a person.

In May I made a verbal commitment for June 1 - Sep 1 to do design for an insurance benefits startup because a friend there reached out. Of course everything has been through Zoom. I have one 30-minute check-in per day with a strategy person who takes Adderrall, speaks a million miles an hour, has difficulty spelling or communicating coherently, speaks almost only in insurance jargon. I am a slower, more meticulous, right-brained designer.

A few weeks ago, I told my friend who got me the job that I'd do 40hr/week for them through Nov 1. I did that out of loyalty and because the team is overall friendly.

In the meantime my strategist has been frustrated with having to explain basic insurance concepts to me (in which I am 100% unfamiliar). Yesterday she said, "you should be getting these concepts by now, it's common sense" and "it's not rocket science" more than once. I felt my face turning red. I'd never come close to receiving feedback like that.

I have a codependent personality and just kind of absorbed it. And I don't want to be seen as a flake. But 2 more months of this seems brutal, even though I don't have any other work lined up and during covid isolation, I don't want to be spinning my wheels, at home, alone, lonely, with nothing to do. Luckily I have plenty of savings to get by on.

So... I could either tell her I was insulted by her comments, or give my two weeks, or just gut it out for 2 more months. What would you do?

posted by critzer to Work & Money (11 answers total)

So... I could either tell her I was insulted by her comments, or give my two weeks, or just gut it out for 2 more months. What would you do?

None of these things - first I would talk to the friend who you initially spoke to and tell them what's going on. Say you haven't been able to get the information you need from this person; it may be because you just don't have enough of a grasp of the industry to do what they need; and you'd like to discuss whether you're actually the right fit for the job, or whether you just need more background info from another source than your main contact. Don't go through the person you're having the issue with, but don't just quit without raising the issue either.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:11 PM on August 29, 2020

Response by poster: @showbiz_liz - Raising the issue with my strategist/manager is what I did yesterday. I said I feel like I'm making your job harder. She insisted I wasn't, she blamed herself for not educating me more and said we could take a half-day to go deeper.

However, in the past she has taken some (not extensive) time to explain insurance to me, and I know this sound weird, but my brain refuses to grasp the information. Or simply doesn't want to. I thought I was a smart person, but it is so incredibly twisty, plus being insanely dull subject matter that I can't seemingly force myself to learn it. I feel embarrassed and also a little crazy.
posted by critzer at 12:25 PM on August 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

In that case, I think you are totally ok to back out now, with apologies. It's not your fault if this just isn't something you can grok. My whole career has been "pick up the details of new industries you know nothing about" and while I'm generally good at it, I've still encountered fields where I just knew it wasn't gonna happen no matter how hard I tried - especially finance. It doesn't mean you're not a smart person in general, or that you're a flake for realizing your limitations.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:31 PM on August 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

Is the site designed for non-(insurance) professionals? If so, they'll be at the same level of industry knowledge as you, so its actually to their benefit to have an outsider. It might not be rocket science to insiders, but still be pretty opaque to people who don't live and breathe it day in and day out. I think liz has some good advice, but don't be too hard on yourself!
P.S., Your contact shouldn't have spoken to you like that; I'll bet they couldn't handle senior level product design to save their soul. We all have different strengths, and if this turns out not to be one of yours, it doesn't make you a dummy.
posted by kate4914 at 12:44 PM on August 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Is the site designed for non-(insurance) professionals?

Well there are design experiences for Brokers, Employers, and Employees.

The Employee sign-up is 18 screens long, but the content is straightfoward.

I'd say the other two experiences are very much Greek to me.
posted by critzer at 12:51 PM on August 29, 2020

I am going to push back on the assumption that you should be understanding insurance concepts at all, ffs.

You are a designer and web developer. You have been hired to organize information and serve it an optimized way according to modern web standards. You have a many-years’ record of successfully performing this function!

The fact that this “strategist” has wasted four months of your time reflects on their job performance, not yours. If they aren’t great as a speaker, they should be giving you flow charts and written memos and outlines, google links, something besides expecting you to e.s.p. the pertinent points of this industry from their rambly zoom blabber. Were these meetings one-on-one? Do you have any witness to the fact this person is a time waster who is offloading important functions of their job onto you?

I would have your option 1 conversation, not with the strategist, but the person you report to, who signs your checks. Pretty much what you explained in your question.

If they, as a group, can’t get it together to nail down the collateral material to deliver to you so you can do your job, it’s time to part ways, Sept. 1, not two months from now. Continuing one-on-one with this strategist should be completely off the table, since they clearly prefer to resorting to belittling you over fulfilling their job function.

Good luck.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 1:29 PM on August 29, 2020 [23 favorites]

I feel embarrassed and also a little crazy.

I recognize this and sign on to leaving this project.

I think if this were at a real company, there would be proper training available, with reference materials, that would allow you to reach the necessary level of domain expertise. But apparently this company doesn't have that.

Someone who already had the domain expertise wouldn't need real training, but you do, and you're not going to get it here. And that feeling - that "I have no idea what's going on and it's making me doubt my own sanity" - is very bad for your confidence, not just in this job but in your career engagement.
posted by fingersandtoes at 1:39 PM on August 29, 2020 [7 favorites]

What I would do is dependent on whether I intended (or hoped) to do this kind of work again in the future (freelancing or in an unfamiliar industry).

This stuck out to me (and maybe this is just in the telling):
I really recommend not saying things like "I feel like I'm making your job harder." This is... just not a good way to raise an issue and communicate your interest in resolving it.

I think whatever you do, you should give your friend a heads-up. I can't tell if you've communicated your difficulties to this person at all but I think it's a courtesy to let them know if you don't want to continue (and why) so that hopefully whomever ends up picking up this work can have a better experience than you did.
posted by sm1tten at 2:01 PM on August 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Were these meetings one-on-one? Do you have any witness to the fact this person is a time waster who is offloading important functions of their job onto you?

They're all one-on-one but the expectation is that I'm a product designer (which I am) (not a marketing type designer) which is a role that definitely integrates into the strategy and has a seat at the table. Although I have no equity.

And no, besides the occasional Jira card, there is little coherent collateral to go on, it's almost entirely verbal and it's a torrent of incredibly fast-given information.

whether I intended (or hoped) to do this kind of work again in the future

In the insurance industry - hellll no. But yeah being a product design consultant to an early stage startup is something I've done before, but's still usually been building a design system, designing UI, making it feel nice, collaborating with devs to get it done right.

just not a good way to raise an issue and communicate your interest in resolving it.

I get it but the crazy part is that she and I mostly enjoy each other as people, we joke around, we're super candid about our personal lives. Yeah it's not like most strategist/designer relationiships. That's part of why it rattled me to hear her say that.
posted by critzer at 3:05 PM on August 29, 2020

First off, insurance is insanely confusing! Insurance doesn't follow common sense from an outside perspective at all. It follows cost and liability and profits. Insurance is a for profit industry that sometimes pays somebody else.

Have you tried to learn on your own? Just pulling up some quick and dirty articles to take in a little? Not alot, but it's possible to do, of you wanted. I'm sure the information is out there is a way that's better presented.

Either way, it's fine to quit a job that's just not working out. If you don't think you can do it and you've done all the things you think you should reasonably do to get an understanding and it hasn't worked, then you're really not a good match. It's professional and ethical to be honest about that and move on.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:10 PM on August 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

It sounds like I work in a similar type of insurance -- and do CX design for brokers, employers, and employees.

Agree 100% that there should be training available for you, as it IS complex. For further context/consideration: I've also found that people who work in this segment of insurance and have done so for years have little understanding of how complex it is, and most of them lack the ability to clearly explain it because they're so used to working only with other people who have years of experience with those products. They also may remember learning the field when the products were simpler, and lack appreciation for how complex they've become in the last decade as the industry has adapted to both competition and customer demand. It's really hard to learn now, in a way it may not have been for them.

Which is all to say: they're not supporting you, and they probably have no clue. That's no excuse, and given the temporary nature of the assignment I don't think it's at all your responsibility to get them re-oriented to reality. 100% support you either jumping ship or putting on armor and dealing with the next few months... then buying yourself a giant cookie or bottle of scotch or post-'Rona vacation as a reward.
posted by cranberry_nut at 5:00 AM on August 30, 2020 [3 favorites]