I'm invisible

I work for a telecom company that shall remain nameless. I work in IT. I've been doing all things computer since 1974. I actually wrote my first program in 1969. It was a very different world. That's for another post some day. Maybe. Anyway, I've been doing this for a long time. I'm good at it.

My title is Principal Technical Architect. Remember the second and third Matrix movies? That's me, except I don't talk to the programs (that would be silly). I talk to the people who write the programs, the people who manage the projects to create the programs, and the people who cough up the money to pay for all of it. Pretty impressive title, huh? It should be. I'm responsible for systems that cost tens of millions of dollars. In the last ten years, I have been directly responsible for saving the company $20 million or more.

Enough tooting my own horn.

In my group, there are two of us. I'll call my peer Bob. Not his real name, obviously. Bob is a good architect. Almost as good as I am. We have a lot of mutual respect and a friendly relationship. Our manager is very easy to work with. His policy for us is to leave us alone as much as possible. As long as our clients are happy and his boss is (reasonably) happy, life is good. Carry on. We are known as "Senior Technical Leadership."

Here comes the invisible part.

Bob gets noticed on every project with which he is even remotely connected. I get, "Steve Brenneis. I don't know who that is." I can work on a project for six months, and then Bob shows up for the last two meetings and suddenly he becomes the go-to guy. I can say something during a meeting and it gets passing notice. Then, on the next meeting, Bob says it, and suddenly it is gospel handed down from on high. It's annoying.

I'm not really whining about this (well, maybe just a little). It is actually an ideal situation for me. I don't really have to do anything, my boss still reports that I walk on water, and everyone in our group thinks that Bob and I are co-equal gods of all systems architecture. I should also be clear that there is no malice on Bob's part. He goes out of his way to make sure I get a share of the credit. He's a good guy.

It's just that no one likes being invisible.

Here's the thing. Bob generates a fair amount of FUD. I blame it on living in close proximity to Microsoft, but I digress. So, he starts a shit storm and then rides in like a white knight to pour soothing oil on the waters of turmoil. Instant hero. Once again, there is no malice. It doesn't detract from his competency even a little bit. It's just how he came up in the world of IT. Very adversarial. But, it gets him noticed. Now, you would think that smart people making six figure salaries with centuries of combined technical expertise between them would see right through this. You would be wrong. They fall for it every time. Maybe he's just that good at it. If so, props to you, Bob.

My problem is that I can't make myself generate FUD. I'm allergic to it. Ever since I first encountered it years ago when Microsoft used it to convince us that everything that wasn't them was unrepentant evil, it makes me feel icky. Can't do it. In a very large organization, it is axiomatic that the signal to noise ratio is very low. That means that you almost have to generate FUD to get noticed. Raw competence won't do it.

Anyway, I'm way too far down this path to spend a lot of time worrying about it. So, I'll watch and see if a new tactic for getting noticed (in a good way) comes along that I can get along with, I'll take it. Or not. Maybe I'll just direct my energies toward something better.