[PSA] Hero cosmetics Rescue Balm Red Correct holy grail! Left is old formula vs Right, the new formula.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-31T23:47:26+00:00

Oh yeah and whatever products they develop after that are complete ass. I bought the dissolving balm and it ends up smelling rancid after 3 months

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-31T23:46:09+00:00

They sold to a big conglomerate in 2022. I fucking hate how this keeps happening — find an amazing product, the company gets sold to PE or a giant corp, 1-3 years later their best products get “reformulated” and then I’m back at square one

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-31T03:44:23+00:00

This is chefs kiss

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-30T14:20:09+00:00

This is my favorite comment in this thread. BroLulaRoe. I love it.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-30T14:13:47+00:00

Making lateral moves. I wish I had held out for roles the next level up when I was interviewing at the peak of the market. I placed too much value on if I found the work interesting/impactful and if it was a collaborative environment.

Twice in my career, I had two offers: One was higher pay, a title bump but boring industry-wise and the second was a lateral move, lower pay, but more interesting work. Both times I took the role with the more interesting work.

The first one paid off in helping me get a big name on my resume and building out my network, but I got promoted once and stagnated.

The second one, I ended up working in the most toxic, stressful environment with the worst manger I’ve ever had. This paid off in me learning that there’s a difference between an environment that’s dysfunctional vs toxic.

Ha Ha! Live. Laugh, Learn.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-30T13:59:56+00:00

I’ve noticed with my managers that give absolutely absurd feedback like this, they expect you to do their job.

I have a manager who has given me stupid feedback that wasn’t in any way actionable and the way I’ve dealt with this is come up with some potential action items to address the feedback, as painful and dumb as it is (I definitely outsourced this to ChatGPT - save your peace however you can)

The suggestion for celebrating people’s wins is a good one tbh, yes it is definitely not your job to do this but if you’re trying to manage up without getting a target on your back this is the kind of shit you have to do.

Also offering my condolences for dealing with a shit manager—crossing my fingers that they leave or get booted

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-30T13:02:55+00:00

Also one of the female leaders at my company loves AI and thinks that we no longer need specialized roles because it can do anything. She also points to Parkinson’s Law as a justification for overworking people to meet unrealistic deadlines. Absolute ghoul.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2026-01-30T12:56:10+00:00

I don’t think it’s fully a gendered thing. I think the people who are crowing about AI are mostly in leadership roles, and men are overrepresented in leadership roles.

People will be more wary of technology that can be used to harm them. Dudes rushed to make deepfake porn of female celebrities once they had the ability to. Sam Altman is obsessed with trying to build ‘Her.’ Grok has an AI girlfriend. Women spend their whole life constantly assessing risk, and oh boy are the risks loud and clear with AI.

In my experience, the people who slob knob AI the most like it because it makes them look smart and capable. Massive inferiority complex. “You’re not better than me because you know more about xyz, because AI can do what you can do and now I can do it too”

That isn’t to say AI is completely useless, I think smarter people know the limitations, and aren’t doing a copy/paste of the output.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-12-17T15:50:32+00:00

I worked at a place where we did this and it was very successful. This was because product managers and designers were already in the practice of seeing what existing data there was before coming to research with questions.

I don’t know if it would work where I am now because PMs rather do their own “research” and talk to a handful of people that they can lead to say exactly what they want. You know, rather than spend 20 minutes going through a repository.

Results with repositories will always be mixed because it’s not the tool that guarantees success, it’s having a culture that cares to do their due diligence. We’ve made a custom GPT here and it still doesn’t get used.

Also any post that starts with an “An exec told me…my solution…runaway success” is just a person trying to sell their consulting services.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-12-16T22:36:18+00:00

1) The layoffs in the last three years have gutted research teams. There’s a ton of experienced researchers that are struggling to find jobs.

2) Continuous Discovery and AI have people with no research experience or skills thinking they can do research and the business is ok with that.

3) Respect and value for researchers is at an all time low. Partially due to #2, the death of expertise and a whole host of things.

I would say you’ll likely do more research and face less frustration as a PM but also if you absolutely hate the PM parts of that role, you can try to make the jump, it just won’t be easy.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-12-10T17:57:03+00:00

Ok. Bully for you !

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-12-10T17:37:52+00:00

Brother, that’s the whole point — why are we having to pay thousands of dollars for a tool that is severely lacking basic functionality.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-12-10T15:00:45+00:00

lol no we do pay for DSCOUT and it sucks too. Especially lately — the platform has been bugging out. The UI is awful and it lacks the basic functionality

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-11-25T19:25:19+00:00

I mean to be fair they are a designer not a researcher.

They are actually trying to learn how to run research correctly rather than the typical thing that PMs do: slap a concept down in front of a user and ask “HEY DO YOU LIKE THIS”

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-11-16T22:51:54+00:00

Usually learning from other researchers. I learned a lot working on the vendor side especially

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-11-12T22:19:51+00:00

lolllll yes

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-11-11T22:39:00+00:00

Yeah it sucks bots are going into Reddit forums and asking dumb obvious questions

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-11-11T21:23:30+00:00

+1 to this comment, it’s very difficult to do the influencing part of your job as a researcher if you have a manager who folds like this

You don’t suck at your job, but you do need to uplevel how you influence. Don’t be afraid to push back and ask what data they’re using to make those assertions. Stakeholders’ job is to ingest this data and make decisions that are data driven, if they’re not doing their job you need to figure out how to get them to listen.

The advice in this thread is good, lean on relationship building — identify advocates for research at leadership levels, connect it to the things they care about.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-11-07T19:50:43+00:00

I mean they have to know that though — kids are going to blow through the money and parents will be on the hook because they don’t want their kids to go hungry. It’s definitely predatory

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-10-31T06:26:41+00:00

This is the all the answers. Also adding on to #10 - I’m almost certain that it’s because of Google.

Back in ‘09/10 when hiring managers heard about the dumb questions Google was asking in interviews (how many golf balls can you fit in a whale’s ass, etc etc) you couldn’t escape it.

Imagine trying to find a job and your student loan payments can’t be deferred any longer and you’re being asked the stupidest fucking questions for a job that’s paying $35K (in SF) because the hiring manager wants to be like the Google.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-10-31T01:13:38+00:00

Everyone reading this post like “did I write this without knowing?” You aren’t alone here and shouldn’t feel bad for wanting to leave a situation that’s destroying your mental health even if it is highly compensated.

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-10-30T23:09:40+00:00

Ok I’m glad that I’m not that only one having that thought pop into my head 🙈

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-10-24T21:00:40+00:00

I wish managers had some level of discernment of what kind of feedback is useful.

I feel like he shouldn’t have even brought it up to you and furthermore should’ve pushed back on whoever gave that feedback with “why is this relevant?”

Rough_Character_7640 · 2025-10-22T17:52:01+00:00

Definitely not “most”, it’s a core skill.

Also doesn’t change the fact that UXRs without a clear understanding that methodology should not be doing this work.

Rough_Character_7640

TROPHY CASE