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Twenty years ago this morning, I walked through the door of 1300 York Avenue ready to start a new role as a system administrator. I was looking forward to wrangling a few Mac OS X servers and seeing what life in the world of technology in academic medicine was like.
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I’ve gone from racking and stacking, to conference room AV design, to software development, to web transformation, to IT experience, to institutional communications. I’ve grown from systems administrator through a complicated set of titles (and one very significant career pivot) to executive director.
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I’ve worked through plane crashes, transit strikes, fires, hurricanes, crane collapses, office floods, power grid failures, earthquakes, and a once-a-century pandemic.
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I’ve been welcomed with open arms, greeted with air kisses, and had my shoulder cried on. I’ve spent hours on the stage of Carnegie Hall. I’ve met Tony Fauci.
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I have tried to shield equipment from a leaking ceiling, getting soaked in the process, only to be later told that the gross anatomy lab was likely the source of the fluids. I’ve unloaded a large truck full of computers in the middle of a busy NYC intersection. I’ve squashed a sizable cockroach, and disposed of it quietly, before the executive I was waiting on arrived. “Other duties as assigned”, as they say.
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I’ve learned that I don’t mind public speaking, perhaps because everyone else dreads it so much. I have built some slide decks threaded with inside jokes just to pop myself.
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I’ve had multiple team members pass away. No management training course prepares you to deal with death. I’ve written / edited enough institutional obituaries to lose count.
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Per others, I have “solved the web”. I was once told in an annual performance review that I was “never wrong”, which went straight to my head.
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On occasion, I’ve been mistreated, had doors metaphorically slammed in my face, and even had my (professional?) heart broken. But patience and fortitude conquer all things.
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Some months before I started, I was entrenched in an interview with someone senior. He posed the question: where do you want to be in five years? As is my way, I was honest and open: I didn’t know. I just wanted to see where the job would take me. The interviewer scoffed: “You know that’s not a very good answer…”
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I stand by it. For two full decades, I’ve absolutely let WCM take me where it needed me. I have seen my fingerprints and contributions on things, and I accept that someday they will fade. But for now, I know that I have more to do.
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