Office politics suck. At least I come out no worse on this one.

For the past year or so, I’ve been acting as Freelance Network Dude at my work. Given that I have no special training in networking, that I’d been trusted with it is amazing, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. Despite the fact that I don’t seem to have done any damage, and I’ve saved the day on a number of occasions, it seems my tenure in that role is nearly at an end. The second in command to my boss, our network architect (who I will refer to as Lieutenant Dan for no other reason than because that’s just what sprung to mind just now), has seemingly perpetually had more on his plate than he can handle, and while I was taking on what responsibilities I could when I could, the powers-that-be (e.g. the VP acting as my boss’ boss) saw fit to hire for him a lackey.

No, it wasn’t me they hired for this role. I’m not bitter about that at all, though by rights I should be at least a bit miffed for not even being asked. However, I’m fully aware I don’t have the training the powers-that-be were looking for. The fact that they were looking for a specific set of skills and they were looking to specifically alleviate certain strains that were showing in Lieutenant Dan’s workload, meant they had to tailor their hire to what they saw was needed.

My boss, however, is pretty awesome. He saw fit to try to move me sideways into a different elevated position that would keep me from feeling like I’d just been kicked back down into the ranks of the lowly on-site hardware technician. The boss was extremely up-front about what was happening behind the scenes after I specifically correctly divined the reason he was asking me to move sideways, due to the overlap this new hire caused, and he even intimated it will come with a raise (assuming his boss approves it). He’s also made overtures in the past about cross-training someone at my site to act as hardware technician so I can work on higher-end stuff, and he’s been consistently impressed (by my reckoning) with my problem-solving skills so he regularly tasks me with odd side-projects that I just love to tackle. So, with the massive re-formatting of the entire company’s ActiveDirectory structure, bringing it all under the same domain across multiple sites, he’s putting me in charge of the administration and maintenance of that AD domain.

This is a huge responsibility, and, though it’s not nearly as esoteric or fun as networking or Linux administration, it’ll keep me relevant despite the new lackey-hiring so I’m more than willing to do what needs doing. Aside from the fact that a lackey of my own as hardware technician would be instrumental in freeing up my time for more administrative concerns, I’m not terribly worried about the security of my job despite the fact that this lateral move might rattle others. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and I’m not much of a dog-eater. I’m just glad the boss seems to be looking out for my best interests.

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Office politics suck. At least I come out no worse on this one.
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4 thoughts on “Office politics suck. At least I come out no worse on this one.

  1. 1

    I have every intention of doing so; thanks for the words of encouragement Mike!

    Considering asking the boss if the company would be willing to pay for training me at Cisco certification or something along those lines, if a correspondence course is available. More research is required.

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