A year ago today, I arrived in Pittsburgh at night after driving all day from Tennessee. Snow was on the ground. Because we’d paused in Nashville for a few days, my dog Pixel thought we’d stopped our cross-country jaunt for good, so when we started driving again, she cried and whined for the whole eight hours. She’d had enough. My house wasn’t ready, so I was staying at an AirBnB for a few weeks. I had to figure out where it was and how to get in, move all my stuff from the car inside up three flights, and convince the dog to pee before collapsing. The next day, I started learning my new job.
I sometimes wonder how I did this.
I didn’t know what I was getting into, although it occurs to me that we seldom do. Although I had taught two classes in grad school, I didn’t really know how to do this job—I didn’t really know much about what the job was. I was naive about a great many things. Just one example: I assumed professors didn’t need to much care about financials. Hilarious.
I know a lot more now, although it’s been my experience it takes about two years to really know a job, and three years to really master it. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more during the next year and a half of my contract.
This year, I’ve
taught six courses to over 250 students
written the first two chapters of the Designing for AI book
helped design two courses (Interaction Design Fundamentals and Advanced IxD)
served on three committees (MHCI Admissions, Design Curriculum, and Adjunct Committee)
gave two talks and a workshop at two separate conferences and lined up giving them again at two other conferences
45 of these posts
which isn’t bad for Year One. Especially when I have to (re-)learn a city, have a romantic life, work on my novel, find new places to go, (re-)learn how to deal with weather, and do all the dumb stuff that comes with moving far away like changing my driver’s license.
People keep asking me, “Are you happy?” and I have no good answer for them. Happiness wasn’t particularly discussed when I was growing up, so I don’t ever think about it. I can remember having been happy, but not typically being happy in the moment. (Maybe something for me to discuss in therapy.) A better question for me is “Are you feeling fulfilled, productive, and useful?” and the answer to that is yes. Another question is, “Are you learning and growing?” Assuredly yes. Ah, but “Are you having fun?” Most of the time.
I miss my friends and life in San Francisco, but even if I had stayed, my life would not have stayed the same. In all likelihood, based on the experiences of some of my friends in similar situations, I would still be unemployed, which probably also means I wouldn’t be living in San Francisco. SF is unforgiving to single people without high-paying jobs. My life there would be different, and probably not for the better.
The time before the last time I was out of work, back in January 2021, I had a session with my friend and occasional writing and creative coach Pam Daghlian to talk about career options. Unsurprisingly, being a design professor was on the list. But the path to get there seemed impossible, or at least incredibly arduous. So to find myself, just two years later, actually doing that job at a great school like Carnegie Mellon, with some of the smartest people in the world, is like a dream. I’m incredibly grateful for my new colleagues, friends, and students.
When I lost my job back in October 2022, post-Covid, post-divorce, post-heartbreak, I was sure I was on the Bad Timeline. But now I don’t think that at all. It might even be that I’m now on the Good Timeline, where I’m supposed to be. Although as John Lennon sang, there’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy.