When our office was considerably smaller, the role of our alpha-geek--let's call him AG for short--was considerably more of the chief-cook-and-bottle-washer mash-up. Our mutal boss commemorated this fact by having a number of baseball-style caps embroidered with AG's varied and sundry functions--you know, one for each "hat" AG wears during a typical day/week/month.
If you made the rounds of the office now, you'd notice hats still perched on the credenza above AG's desk...but not all of them. Others now dwell in other cubicles. Which is as it should be. Because this game is definitely not a "S/He who retires with the most hat wins" proposition. My Mom, who ran part of a hospital lab for something over fifteen years, considered an overly busy manager a bad manager: "The best kind of supervisor should have nothing to do," she claimed.
At the time, I think I managed to stop my eyes from rolling. Because, after all, didn't weren't non-busy supervisors the kind who sat in their offices, keeping themselves amused for 40 hours a week while everyone else did the work? In my experience, a few have, but they are very, very few. So it looks like Mom may have been onto something after all. I hate it when she does that. ;-)
Handing off the hat--along with the added value it represents is a scary thing. It's only been in the last few years that I've come to understand it. (Slow learner much???) But there's no way for the junior members to grow without wearing them (in front of everyone). And, more importantly, there's no way for managers to grow without passing them off.
