I seem to blog about work a lot, I didn’t much care for my last job, so the change has been a positive one over all. I thoroughly enjoy my current job; this appears to have made quite an impact on my work ethic, and my daily enjoyment as well as the response I get from colleagues. One of the guys I work with has a good point: a job is where you spend a very large chunk of your waking life, so you really should enjoy it. That’s idealistic obviously, yet not impossible. On to my story…

At the end of last month my direct technical team leader gave his notice. Where I work you’re required to give a calendar month. With that, his farewell was last night and I now find myself in a team that went from 3 to 2. The truly scary thing is that we’ve lost an invaluable resource; someone whose extensive knowledge of the business meant that the huge quantity of technical expertise could be applied rather expertly.

I’ve only been in my position since the beginning of February, and I’ve barely even scratched the surface of the systems I admin. Our ERP system is integrated into the business so tightly that it actually requires at least a broad overview of how everything works. This essentially means that I need to learn the business rules that govern the way the systems work internally, if not the technical aspect of the data itself that moves around within the systems. So what we’re losing is someone who has accumulated all that knowledge.

I’m in a rather difficult position now, over the last few weeks I’ve been utterly swamped with work, even opting to work from home on weekends to get some of it done. I believe the other guy in my team might be experiencing something similar. Our work tends to come in waves, unfortunately without more personnel we can’t accomodate the peaks, and trying to replace someone in that position is going to be close to impossible. I believe this is also the reason our team hasn’t been expanded past 3 people, because when we hit dips and have nothing to do the people holding the purse strings wonder what they’re paying for. I shouldn’t need to explain the logic, or illogic behind that particular decision.

So last night as a fit of prescience gripped me I foresaw a few difficult months ahead as more projects get dumped on our desks without the aid. My crystal ball confirms this.

I’m now on standby every second week… oh, joy.