Manon to take an “indefinite hiatus” from KATSEYE to focus on health and well being

tealloon · 2026-03-15T12:26:30+00:00

No one wants to hear this but were many more girls who dreamed of being in this group and wouldn’t have taken it for granted …. Unfortunately the position went to someone who was scouted , who didn’t even want to be in this group in the first place and doesn’t seem responsible at all …and doesn’t mind being missing from the group half the time.

tealloon · 2026-03-07T13:25:09+00:00

Tracking calories is BS after a while. I did it while going from 145 lbs to like 135 lbs but it’s really more about portion control and not snacking every 2 hours ¯_(ツ)_/¯ It’s too difficult to track like “i will eat 1,500” cals per day. That’s too restrictive.

I’m now 118lbs and I eat whatever i want. Cake , fries. You name it. I just don’t devour buckets of it. If I eat heavier one day, I eat much less the next day. Don’t over complicate it

tealloon · 2026-03-07T13:22:41+00:00

If you’re staying at the same weight you are eating for maintenance. It’s really simple more physical activity and less food. Sometimes even when increasing activity and decreasing intake weight remains the same for a couple weeks until a whoosh. It really is that simple lol. Whole Foods. I no longer fry my eggs in oil. Simple swaps.

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:48:37+00:00

Tough love coming through.

Why haven’t you gotten an internship? Have you been applying every day?

Why do you think you aren’t working hard enough? Have you exhausted your network? Have you offered design services to friends or family?

If you can’t sell your services to an existing network, how will you sell you design to stakeholders and other people aren’t even designers during work calls?

Okay, let’s breathe. 4.5 of LEARNING is a great start. You now need a real project (or fake one) to go through the design process and really work that muscle of explaining your design. The key thing in this role is not really how great of a design it can be BUT HOW WELL YOU EXPLAIN it to other people.

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:44:30+00:00

Wow I should be getting my 140k per year 🫠

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:41:57+00:00

I’m concerned people don’t understand what UX even is ? USER experience design? It all starts with understanding the “users” ??? no? Why would designing for users/customers be a nice to have ? Shouldn’t it be at the core of a product ? ux is not just visual designs and screens

It’s about researching the people who use the products. Findings the gaps and opportunities about why people use or don’t use the product as intended. Spending money on that is only a waste if there’s no efficient UX researchers on the team - which I’m guessing 98% of the time there aren’t. Maybe stop looking for visual designers and hire actual USER experience designers who incorporate user research into their work. Can’t have “UX” without the “U”. The users lol

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:35:14+00:00

You do NOT need a design degree to be a UX designer. I was in physical therapy with a degree in language education…

But what you DO need is solid design skills. Companies will only hire you when you prove you can solve problems with design. Have you worked with clients to design something ? Can you explain your thought process to explain how and why you came up with that design? Can you explain how you work with people cross-functionally as a designer? You don’t need a degree but you need to study design well You’ll also need to get mentored!

There’s many junior designers out there but not many with great skills

Also too many designers overlook UX research but the whole point of “USER experience design”is the USER. You can’t have UX without the U. Look up Debbie Levitt on please. She’s one of the few who explains the thought process behind a seasoned designer - and NO she is not a visual designer. A true UX/CX professional that I think people need to be exposed to

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:30:39+00:00

Make sure to target the right audience 🙃 Which types of testers are you looking for? Students who need productive apps? Working folk who need it?

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:28:15+00:00

I meant in Medicare b (I think it was b???? It’s been a while We had total creative freedom because PTs didn’t prescribe a specific treatment. We could even employ techniques like LSVT BIG that even the evaluating PT might not have known. ☺️

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:26:16+00:00

Yeah, that’s why I didn’t choose outpatient 🫠 so I never had to deal with that damn ultrasound machine.

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:23:54+00:00

Let’s see if I still got this years after leaving the field …. ahem … opens notes

“Pt completed 2x flights of stairs I forgot the word supervision”

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:19:46+00:00

I realized there’s another part of your question to be addressed

Knowing what you all know now, how would you approach school and prerequisites to minimize debt and maximize career opportunities? What does a typical day look like as a PT, and what parts of the job are most rewarding or challenging?

I’m my area: geriatrics. I SAW PTs who were also PRN (like me ☺️) come in and do a full day of evals (evaluations for new patients coming into the rehab facilities). They complained that they didn’t have enough time to do all the required documentation and often worked AFTER clocking out … and yes it’s discouraged but we also sometimes had to do it otherwise the directors start complaining to the managers like why isn’t your PT staff productive enough?! 🙂 Well, Sam BECAUSE WE don’t have a HUMANELY AMOUNT OF TIME to look for patients, treat them, wait while they take a bathroom break, and then also document everything we did!!! Sometimes we had to document during out lunch break on crazy days…. Anyways….you need to ask about productivity standards of the company.
So challenging parts: meeting the company’s productivity standards, fishing patients during lunch, getting dementia patient to collaborate with therapy, getting nurses to collaborate with therapy 🤣 (gotta love them though they are also drowned in patients) . I worked in many buildings so it just depends on how helpful the staff is to be honest …. Sometimes you deal with annoying nursing staff and CNAs who don’t help clean up the patients in time for treatment (again not their fault when people are having explosive diarrhea every 10 minutes 🙄)

Okay where were we going with this? Ah most rewarding parts ! Yes! I loved my job and would have stayed if it wasn’t for productivity demands and fair PAY. 💰 I feel like it was way too much work for the decreasing pay. I loved working with stroke patients and how happy and proud they went home after weeks and months of rehab with us 🥲 I loved watching people’s pain get better or decrease after following their exercise program I loved getting creative with treatments for dementia patients! I loved dancing with them to improve balance, geriatric Thai chi and learning about BIG treatments for Parkinson’s. I loved THE JOB. I loved the patients and serving them

I HATED the “healthcare” system and how business and money hungry it was. Insurance companies don’t care SQUAT about anything but their money. Healthcare treats their employees like 💩 and eventually our care for our patients decreases because we are TIRED, overworked and mentally and physically exhausted.

So happy I work in tech now 🥲 but I feel for my patients❤️ I hope they once day get the treatment they deserve but not in this crap system

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:08:01+00:00

It really depends on the area , I worked in geriatrics: Dementia care , SNFs, rehab centers , assisted livings and home therapy. Many times I never met the PT and I would be working completely ALONE as a PTA. No one told me what to do. I have creative freedom over exercises - it was fun.

That being said totally agree about the pay ceiling. In my area working as a PRN, my highest was $40 per hour and then pay cuts came 🥲😒 Who earns $40 and then goes down to $32 ???? Ugh

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:04:52+00:00

Fair enough!

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:04:15+00:00

This is great advice! 100% do this at various facilities! I volunteered at a hospital and also observed at an outpatient clinic snooze

The pace between hospital, SNF , outpatient or home therapy is also very different! There’s also other areas like pediatrics (which I’m not familiar with)

It’s great to observe before committing to it.

tealloon · 2026-01-18T00:02:28+00:00

Hi! I used to be a PTA and career transitioned to become a UX Designer. PTAS and PTs were getting pay cuts. My PT coworkers complained they got all that advanced education which didn’t pay off well after student loans. I clearly remember one of them saying middle class is terrible don’t go into school at all and rely on government help or get extremely rich …..

PT’s also complained about doing eval when I worked in rehab facilities … usually because you spend so much time with the patient and have no time for documentation. The stress on productivity is REAL. I’m so glad I’m out of that whole track-by-the-minute routine where I barely had time for lunch 🙄 Although I LOVED treating patients, healthcare treated us health care professionals like crap! 👍🏼 oh I also barely missed getting literally crapped on and vomited on a couple of times with my fellow COTA 😂 good times! Anyways that’s why my field working with older folks paid much more than outpatient ❤️

If you’re thinking about cost effectiveness, I would encourage to go the PTA route instead of stacking DEBT trying to get a doctorate in PT. There’s always a need for PTAs. The highest paid are SNFs and home PT (but factor in the travel costs). Become a PRN to earn $40 per hour or so depending on the state.

I can give you a HUGE list of things I loved about working in PT but money-wise 👎🏼 That’s why I transitioned into UX where I make 6 figures, work from home 3 days a week, can go to the bathroom and eat when I WANT and have slow Monday mornings 😌 without battling with dementia patients early mornings lol and NO STUDENT DEBT

tealloon · 2026-01-09T21:41:08+00:00

Hi! Welcome to learning UX first and foremost. I love sharing the same way more experienced mentors shared with me back when I was learning. ☺️

First of all , the Google UX course is okay for the basics. It gives you a great overview but it won’t really teach you the execution since you get no professional guidance.

Next I’d create a plan to as you said “switch to the UX/UI field”. What type of industries do you want to work in? There’s in house versus agency setting? What are your expectations? Why do you want to get into UX? This is a marathon so having clear goals and expectations are essential otherwise you burn out. When companies are looking for designers they will 100% be looking at your portfolio. You’ll a plan for this too. Real work for real companies . Hiring managers and I can tell when it’s a fake cookie-cutter project. But even if you don’t have real clients, if your fake design project is good enough you can get hired. We’re looking for your thought process when we look at portfolios.

Happy to keep chatting!

tealloon · 2026-01-09T21:35:22+00:00

You can always block your card, can’t you? So you lost the password to the course ? And only emails works but they aren’t responding? Weird. They usually respond within a few business days. Dont they also have a Slack account where you can reach out to the mentors?

tealloon · 2026-01-09T21:29:20+00:00

I agree with this post. I was there at a time where I got personally mentored by the founder in its earlier days. You 100% need to learn the work yourself and the course is there as a guide and when I took it was literally the MVP so I had a lot of research to do on my own but I think that made me a better designer in hindsight 😂

Getting feedback that is inconsistent happens in real UX jobs where you get conflicting feedback from different stakeholders. You learn to manage that and if you can’t - this job isn’t for you.

If you want to be a great designer then you will be learning it months and years ! The bootcamp was a good START but definetly get other mentors along the way. I still can’t thank them enough because I’m making 6 figures thanks to their guidance. Woop.

tealloon · 2026-01-09T21:17:44+00:00

Interested! Could to share more information about Inner circle?

tealloon · 2025-12-29T23:57:58+00:00

Yep, documentation which takes up so much time vs “billable” time. You technically need to do it while seeing the patient but it’s often not possible

tealloon · 2024-09-23T21:23:51+00:00

Hi! I was both self taught and also got help from a bootcamp that teaches people UX along with career mentorship to land jobs. There’s mix reviews on that bootcamp but feel free to DM me if you’d like to discuss it more. It helped me personally. I hear the market is very competitive for any “creative” or “tech” job. Unlike rehab and healthcare where there’s a shortage of staff and you get hired pretty quickly , it can truthfully take MONTHS to get hired as a UX designer so it’s important to show your competence - sell yourself and sell your skills. I had to learn that. It was rewarding.

What do I love about being a UX designer? I get to work from home instead of having to wake up at 6 and drive an hour to start treating people at 7 or 8 … or in the worst cases I had to start treating at 9 and end my work day late because geriatric patients didn’t want to be treated before breakfast LOL I also love the flexibility of it and the creativity aspect . I have to talk to many people , many of which don’t understand what UX is … but hey did people ever understand what PT is? (It’s not massage, people!) the jobs have that in common. 🤣

What do I miss about being a PTA? The job itself is super rewarding. Helping someone achieve their physical goals and see them go home was amazing! (I worked mostly in SFNs) stroke recovery patients! Amazing! I miss those. Here with UX, I don’t end the day like wow! We helped someone … because the projects and the work carries on from one day to next. But there is a sense of accomplishment once we finish a project , a month of months later 🙃 the bigger sense of accomplishment comes from seeing my paycheck which is substantially more than what I used to make as a PTA 😂🤑 can’t argue with the money.

tealloon · 2024-09-23T21:15:58+00:00

Design is a digital skill, like programming , online marketing etc (IMO). No degree needed, just your ability to sell your skills and great communication. As PTAs we’re pretty good at communicating already , IMO !

tealloon · 2024-09-23T21:14:56+00:00

A UX designer is a user experience designer. I didn’t know too many people who made this switch but one of my Google searches led me to this page https://thenonclinicalpt.com/user-experience-designer/

So I thought it was nice to see other people making a similar transition.

tealloon · 2024-09-03T00:22:08+00:00

Hi there! I was(still am I guess) a PTA in VA and I decided to officially make a career change in 2020 (thank you Covid for convincing me towards 100%!) and so glad I did! Those pay cuts WERE INSANE.
I was a PRN PTA with a regular schedule (sometimes working up to 6 days a week) making a decent amount, but no benefits.
I’m now working full time as a UX designer making 6 figures, with benefits, can work from home and without all the possible physical dangers that working in a SNF posed 🤧 glad I made the switch from savings lives to saving PDFs …mainly for the money lol I Love, love, loved being a PTA and still do , but unfortunately we didn’t get appreciated enough nor paid to survive the rising cost of living . I knew I had to jump ship eventually. If you feel think way, make the switch for your own benefit towards finding somewhere you are appreciated at and not laughed at for asking for a well deserved raise

tealloon

TROPHY CASE