This was a great article. I got my BFA in 1999 in Graphic Design. (im an old man!) It was a mainly print education, but the web was so hot ( i see eerie parallels between 1999 and 2021/22.. everyone was calling themselves a web designer to meet a demand, same is happening in UX.. whether they actually are or not) I just fell into web design and never did print ever again

I learned right away all my pie in the sky IM GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD design ideas and ethics were in the toilet at my first job when I was doing websites for cogs and widgets, for digital time and temperature signs, and sadly a newspaper ad which I declined and almost got fired for declining because it said "NO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR GAYS" for a local Republican state rep who was trying to (and he made it) to US Congress.

I had a a job at the Illinois College Of Optometry I got fired from in 2013. They knew NOTHING about the web design/redesign process. I was also trying to implement everything I was learning at the time in my Human Computer Interaction classes I was taking at the time.

They wanted to skip from wireframes straight to production. I was told I was doing too much research by doing a card sorting exercise for the new navigation.

I had to twist their arm into doing user testing with our student interns.

I feel i was being argumentative at times, or I was the "uppity" designer preaching about "good" design.

I interviewed for IBM, and I think they found out, I was fired a week later for being a "bad fit". This firing haunted me for years, to be honest it still haunts me,

I had a contract job at Vtech Kids this past summer. I did everything you said, I kept my down, I followed they style guide and made every revision my manager told me to make, whether I agreed or not.

by the end of my contract, it was like water off a ducks back. i just knew I would have revisions on every design I did!

I did make suggestions on their clunky circa 2008 website, but I wasnt going to die on a hil for it. They said "well its not an ecommerce site, it doesnt make us money, why spend time updating something that doesnt make us any money"

Not my attitude but hey , it really is about the little wins in life sometimes!

Thanks for the great article