I've been subtly moving more of my responsibilities off onto other departments. For example, our hardware needs professional installation. So instead of writing the Installation & Training Plan myself for each bid, I've asked the Installation Team to provide the plan and a description of their process. And just today, I reviewed a piece of software that can strip out all the list of Requirements in these bid docs, and creates an Excel matrix. So I can hand that to the primary salesperson for the account, and say, "Answer these questions for the bid, and show which product meets each requirement." That's 90% of the work off my shoulders. So when I leave... maybe the company will be in a better place...? Distribute the workload across the full sales and training teams, and then they send their final docs to the InDesign guy in Marketing to do the doc layout... and then the loss of me and my skills is less of an impact on the company overall. Makes me feel better about leaving. Now I just need to figure out if I retire, or not. And THAT'S going to be crazy to consider...
I've been trying to hand more things off or at least cross train a bit, but people keep coming to me with the old problems because they know I'll give them a straight, clear answer they can act on rather than an ambiguous response that doesn't address their need. My frustration is we have a major change being pushed on us, and after a year plus of gaslighting me over the problem and solutions it's all pushed on me to deal with. I can do it, or more accurately I could have done it if given the resources and support a year ago. And the flip side is I don't think anyone else can do it. I'm usually not so self confident, but it's a problem that requires a certain creativity in engineering not many have. It's a problem that needs to be worked from both ends. Others could drive down the technical challenge but end up in a dead end. And others know what the solution looks like but have no ability to create it. Marrying the two together is harder, and it's what they'll struggle with without me. I've been here seventeen years. I figure if I can get the same run in the next company I can retire then.
My history is a long series of 2-3 year stints, until recently. My previous job I was at for 4 years, and this one is coming up on 6. I'd hoped to ride this out for the next 10 years or so, and then retire early. But... yeah, that's not gonna happen. I've been here seventeen years. I figure if I can get the same run in the next company I can retire then.