What is it exactly that you do around here?

The Greatest American Hero was a show that chronicled this teacher's adventures after a group of aliens gives him a red suit that gives him superhuman abilities. Unfortunately, he immediately loses its instruction booklet and thus has to learn how to use his powers by trial and error, often with comical results.

I don't know what is more profound, that the show lasted three seasons or that it had talents like Robert Culp and Connie Sellecca.




My cubicle, complete with Wife Prepared Lunch and Ethnic Flag

My current position is a lot like that.  I was intended to be a superhero for some but I have no

instruction booklet.  My boss isn't completely sure what to do with me because he manages a bunch of developers and code monkeys and I'm kinda tossed into that group for some reason.  The only thing I know is that he is grateful that I came along because he was having to manage the projects I'm on and do the day-to-day system support and it was not something he signed up for as they say.

My interview was with 5 people over the course of a morning.  I've had interviews with multiple people at a company before, and it makes a lot of sense: as long as I'm there, why not get everyone I'm gonna work with or report to together so that everyone is only inconvenienced once. 

The funny thing that I really didn't pick up on at the time was that each person had a slightly different idea of what my role/position would entail.  The business "client" expected me to be her day-to-day personal application administrator.  The IT Director felt that I would be the System Architect for the entire Enterprise Archive initiative.  The two people I was replacing were just relieved they didn't have to deal with her anymore. 

There's a saying that when you have more than one boss you really have none.  The corollary to that saying is that when you have too many loosely defined roles, you really have a hard time writing your resume.