Work Status

I am still employed and my employer is still in business. We've trimmed down to ~40 employees and lots of people are doing things beside what they were hired to do, myself included. While many people are clearly demoralized and reluctant to do things outside their areas of expertise, I'm rather enjoying it. Granted, most of the things I've been working on are still technology related but instead of drafting policies, working with vendors on disaster recovery, and negotiating contracts, I'm still doing interesting things. I'm instead working with wholesale vendors to sell off excess equipment, working with facilities to smooth out issues with the building security and alarm panels, helping users directly, I relocated an office almost single-handedly (network, phone, servers, switches, routers, call managers, etc.), and have been learning how to work with our Cisco VoIP phone system. I'm actually learning a lot as well as refreshing my technical skills so it's kind of fun. There's also a certain type of satisfaction you get from doing more of the hands-on stuff--you can see what you create and get the immediate end-user satisfaction. While I don't necessarily plan to stay in this mode long-term, I'm glad to see that I can jump right back into it and offer good service.

So, if there's a lesson to be learned.... It's wise for management to jump back onto the front line and do the stuff that got you to where you are now. It gives you an appreciation for your team, hones your skills, and helps you to find areas where there might be room for improvement. Of course, it also is a tremendous time to reconnect with your group and your customers on a level for which there is no substitution.