The Past Year(s)— 🎢
By: Brad Macdonald
Tags: Gig Economy, Career Change, UX Design

Losing my job was the best thing that ever happened to me. It didn’t seem like that at the time, but now, with the clarity of hindsight, I can see that it finally gave me the freedom to make the changes that I’d been pondering for years but was also too nervous (apathetic?) to actually go and do — to make the leap into User Experience Design (UX).

For 7 years, I worked in education as an EFL teacher and school coordinator in Barcelona. For the last 3 of these 7 years I also turned, like many teachers had, to teaching for an online English teaching company based in China in addition to my normal teaching job. This was really an ideal situation as I could block teaching hours throughout the day and have experience working with learners of different ages across the world. When I first came across online teaching, the thought of it seemed crazy — What about the classroom dynamic! What about the games! But the lure of a competitive hourly wage from the comfort of my own home on top of my normal teaching salary was too enticing to pass up.

After a long interview process the required levels of smiling and positivity that, admittedly, don’t come naturally to me, I was in. For 3 years I diligently logged-in every morning and taught Chinese students as they arrived home from school. It was an interesting insight into Chinese culture and also into the pressure put on children there to succeed academically. When that job finished for the day, I would head off to my school to teach students there — for a long time, this routine was so easy and comfortable that thought I never wanted it to change.

Working for a number of years with your feet in two different countries is rewarding and exciting but also provides an interesting opportunity for comparison. I began to realise that there is a delicate arrangement with online teaching companies in China that hire predominantly North American staff. A balance that requires taking into account the workplace expectations and conditions of one place with the cultural and political requirements of another. At first glance on the the teachers’ side, everything is kept very glossy and positive — but it soon became clear to me what my role within the company was.

About two years into my contract, during a class with a younger student, the topic of certain Chinese territories came up. In the conversation with the student, I referred, perhaps contentiously, to said place as being a separate country and didn’t really think any more about the interaction — until my phone started ringing the next day.

I received a phone call from the school’s head office. Apparently a “complaint had been made’’ regarding my ideas of geography. I use scare quotes here because I didn’t really believe that a student had complained about this — there were murmurs that the EdTech giant had begun to employ AI to flag inappropriate topics of conversations. It was starting to all feel a bit dystopian, so much so that I even posted about it on an online forum and was later asked to do an interview for the Wall Street Journal (paywall) about censorship in online education in China. I chose not to be named in the article of course because who knows what other calls I would get from head office. This experience was enough to remind me that I’d better just keep my head down and leave any sort of potentially contentious cultural and political topics at the door, which I did.

As the pandemic steamed along leaving economic ruin in its wake, my normal ‘brick and mortar’ school couldn’t bear the brunt any longer. They were forced to close their doors and all I had left to hold on to (thankfully at the time) was teaching online. Hanging on from one week to the next to see if I would get booked for enough classes had me in a constant state of financial anxiety. I no longer had the backup of my position at a ‘real school’ to supply the social safety net — suddenly what had been an ‘easy’ life was anything but.

I continued to work any hours that I could, trying to remain positive, while at the same time being sure not to have any slips of the tongue that might lead to more “corrective actions.’’ Unfortunately, my effort were in vain — I received an email that my contract was being terminated due to changing company needs. Unceremoniously, the last of my teaching career slipped away.

After the initial shock and depression of really being at a professional rock-bottom, I slowly began to see a glimmer of the silver lining. It took some time to pull myself out of the slump, but as I did I realised I finally had the space, the time and the impetus to follow the career dreams that had been swirling in my head of years but which I hadn’t properly pursued.

For years I had considered changing to a career in UX (User Experience Design), and I knew it was the time to finally pull the trigger. I signed myself up for my first ever online coding course, and ate up every article I could find about UX design and development. But I knew I had to go one level deeper and look in to more formal education – a daunting thought but one that I knew was right.

I set up ‘digital coffees’ with every friend of a friend that worked in design that I could get my hands on. I wanted to make sure 100% that this career move was the right one for me. After all these chats, I was convinced — I signed up for an intense UX/UI course at Ironhack, Barcelona. After a gruelling 3 months, I came out the other end exhausted but with a sense of accomplishment that I hadn’t felt in a long time. As I began applying for jobs, in a totally different field for the first time in 7 years, I felt like I was at the foot of a mountain but following my gut, doing the research and doing the work all paid off. Two weeks after the course, I was hired to my first position as a UX/UI designer for an agency and six months after that I began a dream position as a UX Researcher at Glovo. After a year of uncertainty and hard work the future suddenly feels more secure.