Here it is, the Bottom Line on top: Never take a job with “anal” in the title. If your job has an anal in it anywhere chances are you will end up acting or feeling like one.
When you finally get good at being an analyst you can’t help but go too far and end up over-analyzing everything. You know you have gone too far when you start questioning basic things like what day it is or what time it is, even though you just looked at your calendar or watch. Then in an effort to compensate you head toward the other extreme where you skim over everything and ignore all the details in a recurring vicious cycle. Your relatives, friends and co-workers will be sure to let you know when you are analyzing too much or too little by starting many of their sentences with “No one cares…” or “Wait a minute…”.
The analyst is cursed because everyone assumes they know it all. Engineers get to specialize in just one thing but analyst are supposed to cover everything. If we knew it all we would have a better job than this! People also assume you will do anything and expect you to cover everything from the Enterprise Infrastructure down to the paper towels in the restroom. They will also accuse you of reading all their data or listening to their calls even though you can’t keep up with your own email and phone calls. Again, if we were that sophisticated we would find better stuff to snoop.
All your co-workers and customers will assume you are available anytime, especially vacations and holidays. They are allowed to be freaked out during the disaster but you have to stay cool. Worst of all, everyone assumes you want to help them with their friends, relatives and acquaintances for any and all issues and projects. In the same conversation where they were complaining about being overworked they will freely assign you non-company related tasks and never think twice.
The analyst usually works. You have to be self-motivated and not rely on others for help while at the same time you must also work well with others as part of the job. This creates a bi-polar response where the analyst can’t get along with the other team members when they are working on a team of one. Sometimes a Systems Analyst has been around so long they need to separate them from the herd so they reassign them as Senior Systems Analyst. It’s not a promotion, just a distinction so the other regular analysts will know to leave him alone.
If I had it to do all over again, I would get me an honest job without any anal in it.
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