The Last One
I’m in an interesting position at work - I’m the last remaining employee that has detailed knowledge of a particular system. Namely, I’m referring to PPD GCL’s Remote Data Access (RDA), which is the website that displays test results online for clinical monitors, sponsors, investigators, etc. to view. This is the job that I started back in March of last year. Since then, I’ve been doing both my previous job (data transfer manager) as well as this new job. When I took the RDA job, I was one of three employees that was responsible for the RDA, with me replacing an employee who was leaving the company. A couple months later, another RDA admin left. This employee was not replaced, so that left two of us handling the RDA.
Two weeks ago, my remaining RDA colleague retired. I’m all alone!
There are no plans to replace the retiree, so it’s all on me now. I’m still deciding how I feel about this. On one hand - talk about job security! And bargaining power! The company would be in quite a predicament if I left, so I would hope they would do what they can do make me happy. 
I also essentially have free reign to restructure and re-design the processes and internal implementations as I see fit, since I don’t have to run it by any other colleagues or train others on any changes.
On the other hand, this puts a lot of pressure on me, since I have sole responsibility of the system and I’m the only one performing the day-to-day tasks, maintenance and upgrades of it. As of now, I can’t really take any extended vacations. I’m the only one on call during the weekends. I have no backup if I get overwhelmed. All the workload is on me, leaving little time to develop other programs, learn new processes or get involved with designing new systems.
No matter how I feel about it, though, you can bet I’m going to use this to my advantage. I just need to make sure I’m smart about it, and not blunder my way into an awkward situation. I’m going to make a play for more compensation and/or promotion, and if PPD doesn’t work with me, this should at least be a good experience and good talking point for job interviews. I’ve written about some of my frustrations with the company in the past - now it’s time to use my leverage to try to do something about that. Will it work? We shall see…
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Feb 13th, 2008 at 09:24:41
Two things bother me about this:
I also essentially have free reign to restructure and re-design the processes and internal implementations as I see fit, since I don’t have to run it by any other colleagues or train others on any changes.
It’s usually good to sanity-check ideas; of course, some folks don’t like to outdo Rube Goldberg the way I do, I suppose.
I’m going to make a play for more compensation and/or promotion, and if PPD doesn’t work with me, this should at least be a good experience and good talking point for job interviews
Never underestimate corporate America’s capacity for bad management practices. That’s how they got where they are now–they’ve achieved a “hit by a bus” factor of 1 with RDA. From what I’ve seen, they’re willing to tolerate quite a bit to make some arbitrary budget numbers.
But, heck yeah, what a good bargaining position!
Feb 13th, 2008 at 09:46:49
Thanks for the comments. It’s always good to get feedback and a reality check from someone who has some experience in a similar setting.
You are, of course, very much right about it being a good sanity-check to have others involved in the process. I’m just glad that now some of the “red tape” is gone, I can make the processes more efficient without encountering resistance to change by people who have been doing things the same way for years. But that again goes back to what you said - it’s good to have someone with another perspective involved to make sure what I want to do will indeed make things more efficient. Hopefully they’ll at least find a temporary back up for me (I do very much want to take vacation still!!!) and this will be someone I can bounce ideas off for perspective.
“Hit by bus” factor - I like that…Might include that on the ol’ resume - Effectively managed time while performing dual roles, saving the company resources and allowing them to achieve a hit by bus factor of 1.