"Oh my GOSH, design leadership in tech!"
switches to corporate executive voice
"We're thrilled to announce that our new Head of Design will be... an AI trained exclusively on LinkedIn optimized posts and rejected Dieter Rams principles!"
back to normal, but anxious
"You know, I went to one of those tech company all-hands meetings with my friend. The design leader got up there and said…"
switches to calm, methodical tech voice
"We're implementing a revolutionary new design system." And I thought, "Oh, that sounds important! But then they just kept saying "user-centric" and "paradigm shift" while showing slides of increasingly abstract circles."
manic whisper
"The REAL truth about design leadership is that everyone's just running around with their Figma files on fire, pretending they know what "design ops" means!"
professional consultant voice
"Maria, we need to scale our design system. Have you considered turning your nervous breakdowns into reusable components? Our data shows that hyperventilating into a paper bag with a sans serif font performs 47% better than serif fonts."
back to normal but increasingly frazzled
And the TITLES! Oh my god, the titles!"
switches to HR voice
"We're not looking for a 'Design Leader' anymore. We need a 'Principal Design Evangelist Experience Journey Cartographer' who can 'architect seamless emotional resonance while maintaining stakeholder equilibrium in a Web7 paradigm.’"
switches to manic whisper
You know it's serious when designers willingly started learning business. That's like me volunteering to do my own taxes!"
back to normal voice
"But you know what's really keeping me up at night?"
switches to conspiracy theorist whisper
"They trained HALF A MILLION PEOPLE at IBM in design thinking. That's like if everyone in Kansas City suddenly knew how to make journey maps. What are they planning? A user-centered UPRISING?"