A normal day for an enterprise engineer meant rolling out of bed followed by a zombie like drive into the office and after fumbling with a few security cards and passwords I was in my dark cave performing my morning checklist routine. It was nice and quiet and I seldom had to deal with people. I rarely had to be asked what to do by my manager but when we spoke it was in the techno language that most civilians can’t understand. Going to lunch was normally done with the same couple of people whom were also techno-geeks in their own right. It is normally an antisocial being that you become when you assume the role of an enterprise engineer.
As a Technical Account Manager, a.k.a Virtual CIO there really is no such thing as a normal day. My commute can mean going into the next room and working out of my home office, it can take me into one of three counties and meeting with organizations in all industries and of all sizes. I can be talking tech one second, financial impact the next, and making a business case another. You have to make presentations, reports, and provide documentation that can be understood by all, and you have to be likeable while doing it. You are advising business owners, financial officers, sales people, all types of personalities and you must dynamically adjust to all sorts of situations. The thought of this can throw some engineers into a panic attack.
So why the multiple personalities? I think that it holds true for most careers and even life, stepping into a different role can be described as finding yourself filing someone else’s shoes. Sometimes you trip and fall as you wear unfamiliar shoes but you keep walking and you eventually learn to run, we become the role we are in.
Tune in next time to see why I made the change.
