Apples vs. Oranges

I've been really busy lately. The kind of busy where work is chewing
up my brain.

I was talking to Fiona about this the other day -- the difference
between working, and working hard. In the last few months of working
at my previous job I rarely felt that it was actually an intellectual
challenge, or even an intellectual exercise. I'd gone from having a
great deal of responsibility for one project -- I didn't just manage
the finances, but actually led the development and testing teams -- to
partial responsibility for three projects, two of which were just
barely ticking along. As kindly uncle Bilbo might say: like butter
scraped over too much bread.

So I was working, but I was rarely working hard. Also, I had good
reason to think that I was very good at my job so I didn't have much
to prove. All this has changed.

At my new job, I'm working hard. I'm learning a lot. I'm solving hard
problems. And, as programmers do, I tend to get caught up in it. Just
adding one more feature, or tweaking the interface a little bit, or
extending the scope... And then suddenly it's 6.30 and kind of cold.
And quiet.

Well, it's quiet all the time, really. I'm still in exile which means
that some days I don't get to see any of the other people that I'm
working "with".

But when I do see them, they seem quite pleased with me. And not just
with the actual SharePoint stuff that I was hired to do, but with my
strategic input. At the rare meetings that I get escorted to, I've
started sort of cautiously suggesting some strategic things,
especially around IT project management. The reception so far has
been, "What a good idea! We must get you talking to [the expert hired
to deal with this issue]." The weird thing is that my opinion was
never sought or valued at my last job which means either that they
handled things better, or they under-valued me. I tend to think it's a
little of both.

It was a much larger IT operation, and there were a lot more silos. By
this I mean that the various types of IT: infrastructure, operating
systems, projects and so on were managed by separate groups, and
rarely communicated except at the very top and the very bottom. (Where
I was...) There wasn't a single person (the Chief Information Officer
here at New Job) who was responsible across the board for IT stuff. I
kind of like the flatter and more accountable style of IT management
here. Which is not to say that the lack of appreciation of IT at an
enterprise level isn't a little... worrying. (Nobody said cowboy. Did
you hear anyone say cowboy?) But hey, it gives me a chance to make
what seem to me very obvious suggestions which are received as works
of genius.