Member-only story
Fit For Purpose?
For nearly eight years, I was a one-person shop — three commands deep, countless projects in, and still building the plane while flying it. It wasn’t a badge of honor. It was just the job. No team, no bench, no fallback. Just me, a keyboard, and a set of expectations that rarely matched the resources provided.
Over time, I watched colleagues land in similar roles they weren’t equipped for. Some were the “closest warm body,” assigned by proximity rather than qualification. Others started strong, but the billet evolved out from under them. What began as a comfortable corner of PowerPointland suddenly demanded analytics, LMS integration, and workforce strategy — skills they never signed up to learn and had no interest in acquiring.
It’s easy to criticize, but that’s the system. Most of us don’t get to define our roles. We inherit them — and their gaps — and either grow to fill them or fail trying.
A supervisor once told me, after I raised concerns about succession planning, “The stupidest thing this command could do is force you to retire or walk away. You’ve got nearly two decades of training development experience. We couldn’t even start to replace that.”
I was humbled. It’s rare to be seen like that, especially in a bureaucracy. But here’s the truth: I am replaceable. We all are.
