Solomonster

As you may know, the holding company I work for recently sold its 2 held companies, so most of my IT job went elsewhere, one way or another.  I have been busting my ass for the last 5 years here, and rarely do I get any thanks or recognition from the users for whom I try so hard.  It's the curse endemic to this type of job:  When things are going well and you're kicking ass on everything, most of the time that means that nobody notices... by design.  By design, my work troubleshooting, problem solving, and general intervention on behalf of "my people" should not interrupt their work.  Unfortunately, it is too easy not to perform the necessary self-marketing and let people know what I do for them.  I'm a humble fellow, of course, I'm not a braggart, I don't whine much, it's just not something that comes naturally to me.  But in IT, where my problem-solving accomplishments are, by design, invisible, self-promotion is a necessary part of the job.  It's necessary for a host of reasons, but the one I'm writing about today is because if you don't do that self-promotion, then people don't realize how much you've done for them and often assume the opposite:  They'll assume that you're doing nothing for them instead of everything.

So, many of my cow-orkers have gone to one or other of the companies we've sold.  Yesterday, I got a call from one of them thanking me.  "Charlie, we didn't realize how much you did for us!"  We're nearing the end of our transition period, and I am still getting calls from my old CFO on issues that he should have gone to either his internal helpdesk or his own internal IT guy.  But he's still calling me.  He doesn't call me because he's a nice guy and likes hanging around with other nice guys, he's not and he doesn't, he's calling because I'm still more responsive to his issues than the new parent-company's IT department, the parent-company's help desk, and his own IT guy.

This has been a hard job, and I'm not sad to see it going away, very soon.  (The paycheck's departure could crimp my style, this much is true!)  But, for as many conflicts as one has over 5 years of working in a company where 90% of my interractions with folks is across 3 or 4 time zones and the miscommunication and simple disconnects as that creates, at least I can leave here with a "Thank You" that means something and the reminder that trying harder really did produce valuable results for people... much as they didn't notice it at the time!

No, that's not much, is it?  But, it's what I can hang my hat on, so I will keep it.