You know what I'm really good at? Being second. Being the assistant. Being support. Being backstage. This is where I thrive. I wonder how many of y'all are the same... Comment here if you're an expert backup, a number one number two. Let's celebrate us. #SpreadLove
Most of my work is pretty behind the scenes stuff that allows programs to run smoothly under someone else's direction. I don't want to be in front of the crowd. I'll hire people to do that while I stand at the back and watch or take pictures. 😂
*high five*
It me! My boss told me this summer, “I’m so glad you’ve been my person this summer.” And it comes from years of practice as backup, making sandwiches and passing out water, being sure pages are tabbed and scores marked, knowing where the first aid kit is.
Oh, totally. I never wanted to be in charge but could be a crackerjack assistant for the right kind of person (and was very lucky with my bosses over the years). Of course it meant being the head when they were away, but when you know how they think that becomes possible.
Exactly! I am very lucky to be in a position like that myself.
I don't like to think of myself as backstage because I'm quite often very loud and obnoxious, but I guess it is as support more often than not. So yeah.
Loud and obnoxious is very much a backstage characteristic! Opinions inform policy, direction, momentum. 🎉
That's awesome! Super valuable and underrated skill set!
Half the people I work with see me in the hall, don’t know me and think I’m a student, not an employee, even though I’ve worked there for 15 years. But when I’m not there, things grind to a halt. I make everything run smoothly behind the scenes but I’m very introverted so no one even knows I exist 😂
Had a teacher today ask me why there were no digital records from 2020-2021 and I gently explained to her I worked in another department during those years, and if I wasn’t there to do it, it just didn’t get done. I am one of three people in the whole college with course section edit access.
🎉🎉🎉
35 years a social worker. It was never about me. It was about the families, the children, the teachers, the grandparents, the students, the siblings, the communities
My whole life I've gravitated to the senior NCO type position. The buffer between the gormless twat giving orders and the poor saps trying to make it happen. I do not want the limelight. I just want to know the job got done.
Somehow, I guessed this about you. Love you, packmate.
One of nature's born stage hands I am.
Hell yeah! I love being the right hand of the throne. 🔥💀
YESSSSSSSS ME TOO! 🎉🎉
Hello, hi. And I’m not feeling great about it right now so you’re a queen for this
Oh my friend. It can be a hard role... the reason I posted it was I was thinking how I was pushed and pushed to be The Best and... I'm just not? And not everyone can be The Best! I love being Good At The Thing. I will support you and pump you up at every opportunity! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Everyone has different strengths. If everyone could do the same thing we’d be rowing in circles
Exactly so. Sometimes I think "this would be so much easier if everyone were like me" and then I remind myself how BORING that would be.
I think of myself as the sidekick.
YES! I LOVE BEING THE SIDEKICK! *high five* 🎉
Or the fairy bsky.app/profile/iced...
Omg yes I'm a fairy! 🧚♀️
I'm great at being the assistant. If you have the vision and give me clear instructions. I am your person to work tirelessly in the background to get things done.
YES! 🎉
I can take center stage if I have to, but I much prefer standing behind someone and uplift them instead. I don't need the credit or the recognition; what I really want is to help other people shine as bright as they can, because everyone deserves the opportunity to shine.
YES they find their light and you shine it! (And that's finding your light!)
We all have a role to play 💜
I always enjoyed being the person no one knew about who made stuff happen.
HELL YEAH! *high five*
It’s the best, right?
Truly, it is.
Swing dogs are essential, though. They bring the team.
Oh, on the flowchart, I think I'm a wheel dog, but it's that last choice between wheel and musher where I pause, and think, and take the assistant role. 💜
It's possible I might be a musher... maybe I need an expert second opinion...
Well, do you prefer eating food or scooping poop? Because I think that's the main difference.
Yeah, eating the food is going to have to rank higher for me.
Same here
My dream job was to find a person who was Doing Good Things and to be their invisible number two, Making Shit Happen. Especially if what the Good Things person needed was a wild variety of help. Research to reservations, safety compliance to sanitary products in bathrooms.
Yesssss! *high five*
Yesss. Computer programmer. Happy to continue being a worker bee who gets all the shit done, quickly and efficiently.
A few years ago, the other team leads and I (for clarity, Team Lead is NOT a management position. It means I am a great, and opinionated worker bee) got company awards in a little ceremony. We had to stand in front of people and receive rewards, and I think it caused us all actual physical pain. 😁
O noooooooo! Nothing worse than BEING RECOGNIZED!
backups are the best! I'm a holy shit, anybody know how to fly a plane.
I'm the listener in my personal and professional relationships, and the advisor, and the cheerleader who delights in others successes. Helping someone find their way, or lending some of my strength until they can get there on their own, satisfies me so deeply.
I get so much satisfaction from this that it's enough to make me believe that this is the role my soul chose before I was born, and that the life I've had was training to fulfill that role. It doesn't matter if it's literally true. It's poetically true. The words capture and convey the feeling.
I love this so much. And very much feel similarly. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. 💜
I call myself the Swing Dog. Give me the outline & rough details of a leader's plan & I'll kick ass pulling it together. I've worked as office admin most of my adult life & was a better handler than musher tbh. I ran the costume department for theater kids growing up, so it's just always been me.
Lab tech, doing the experiments, refining them. Not coming up with new fields of study, a blank page makes my head hurt.
Yep. Even in my archaeologist days, I didn't find the sites to dig. But hand me boxes of sherds or bones & I could put them back together & help analyze them in the proper contexts.
Wheel dog says AWOOOOO
I am a Fool. I am not suited to be an assistant, and not commanding enough to be a leader. But I get to question and mock and counter-bully. I am the social equivalent of the town guard. Yet as I can be nothing BUT a fool, I must do the job well or be out on my ass.
also, very important job -- i applaud
Probably more of a competent understudy's understudy, if I'm honest with myself.
Hell yeah! Here's to us! 🎉
The only time I’ve wanted the spotlight is literally onstage. In every other sphere, I’m very happy being a useful cog.
USEFUL COGS UNITE! 🎉🎉🎉
Without us, the world grinds to a halt. 😌