I guess it’s the nature of the role. Plus, the fact that I am a 48 year old practitioner who claims a 20+ years practice background. These factors mean I cannot expect to remain in a technical/mechanical role for an extended period of time, without being pulled into expectations involving issues such as turf and personality tussles. I am neither too young to be given basic tasks nor too old to be given an administration role. I am at that age and level of experience where I am expected to be in the thick of agenda setting, issues wrestling, improvements as a priority and people and strategy management as a core skill.
I can enjoy those tasks – but only at personal costs which I am reluctant to pay. Those tasks make me do things I am reluctant to do – such as staring people down, working phones and corridors to strategize framing issues and zoning people into corners they’d hate to be in, calling bluffs, and basically not switch off for 15 hours a day. Can I enjoy working these spaces? I think so. Will I be willing to park a few years aside to work these aspects? I don’t know.
What is the alternative? I have not been trained to do anything else and to do this requires a commitment to incur this cost of a deep dive. It may mean looking back one day and asking why I spent years doing this. But what else is there to do?
Ante 