CODE IN TOKYO

The Story of Realizing "I'm Not Cut Out for PM" and Running Away

Being a project manager is hard.

No, really.

People say “AI will make management easier,” but PM work is essentially the business of mediating human relationships, so in the end, it’s the human who gets beaten up.

I used to do PM-ish work myself. That said, it was web-based, so the scale was maybe 20 people at most. Not the hundreds-of-people scale of massive SI projects.

But it was tough enough.

Spec changes, schedule delays, coordinating with sales, apologizing to clients, temperature differences between team members.

When you’re an engineer, you think “bugs are scary,” but when you’re a PM, what’s scary is people.

At one point, my mental health really took a hit.

In the middle of the night, my heart suddenly started hurting.

“Is this bad?” I thought, and went to the hospital for a thorough examination.

The result.

“No abnormalities.”

Wait, wait, I’m the one feeling nothing but abnormalities here.

The doctor told me, “It’s stress. Please cut back on work.”

Well, of course.

Looking back, I think my body was warning me first: “Hey, you’re not cut out for this.”

I didn’t quit immediately after, but I decided “I’m done with PM.”

In the end, I became a freelance engineer.

Of course, freelancing is hard too. Contracts end, income isn’t stable, and there are age-related issues.

But at least it suited me better than “being caught between 20 people’s emotions every day.”

I’m not the type with particularly strong mental fortitude.

So,

This level was healthier for me on the whole.

Conversely, when I see people continuing as PM while carrying all of:

I think, “Wait, isn’t that just superhuman?”

Probably, if I’d been in that state with no escape, I would’ve broken somewhere.

So even now, when I see a PM who keeps apologizing on a burning project, I quietly salute them in my heart.

“Sorry, I couldn’t do it.”