The Cost of Range
The Cost of Range
From the outside, range sounds flattering. From the inside, it is heavier than people think.
The first cost is narrative. A narrow path is easier to explain. A wider one takes longer for other people to understand, and sometimes they never really do. If I move between design, code, systems, business, and direction, some people read that as flexibility and some read it as lack of focus. I have had to get comfortable with that ambiguity.
The second cost is maintenance. Range keeps the learning burden alive. The minute one surface gets stronger, another weak point becomes more visible. There is no long stretch where I get to relax into one finished identity and stay there.
Why I still take the trade
I still choose it because the work I want does not live inside one lane. It lives in the joins. It needs connected judgment more than it needs a neat label. That does not mean I romanticize breadth. I know it can become shallow fast. It only stays respectable if it keeps turning into real competence.
There is also something clarifying about the cost itself. If range were only a flattering self-description, I would distrust it. The fact that it keeps asking more from me is part of why I believe it.