I Like Hats

Denny Russell  January 3 2008 03:30:00 PM

And it's a good thing because I wear a lot of them.  Recently, at a Holiday party, I was talking to someone about where I work and they asked, 'What do you do there?' And my response went something like this...

"I provide technical support for our email management software. We delete or archive old emails and can search them for content for legal need."  

'So you just provide support all day?"

"No, I'm also in charge of Product QA and troubleshooting issues before they get to the developer.  Plus, I am the Webmaster,  the email administrator (for Lotus/Domino environment), write articles for and publish a monthly customer newsletter, conduct monthly training seminars, I am the Sametime admin, the Blackberry admin, and Oh yeah, I write a blog too."

Now my intention here is not to promote myself but to find out if this is the norm?  The response I got was one of just shock and disbelief.  Now this person did not work in the IT field and I got the impression they thought that this was way too much for one person to handle.  Maybe I am crazy (not for this reason as my manager would respond) but I enjoy what I do and don't want to give any of it up.  Juggling many balls, while fighting numerous fires all at the same time is just the way of the IT person.  Or at least it is here and the few other places I worked before Sherpa.

Starting out with Sherpa a little over 7 years ago, never did I imagine the things I'd be doing today (blogs, what the heck is a blog?). All of these roles have allowed me to expand my knowledge so I can share it with my customers (and anyone else who will listen.) I definitely never thought this is what I would be doing now when I was at Indiana University of Pennsylvania working on my teaching degree.  I figured I'd be teaching business classes at a high school with my summers off.  Wow, how things change.

For now, I'll keep changing hats and adding new ones as they present themselves.  Although, on Saturday night, I'll only being wearing one, my Black and Gold Steeler's hat.

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