On Being Important
This is something on my mind with my work projects this year. I work on Linux KVM on ARM for Google Cloud. It's a fun and challenging gig. I get paid Google bucks to specialize in open source operating systems work. There aren't many people that get to do that. It's a small and elite world. That means there aren't many people capable of doing what I do.
Pros
One of the main pros of being a member of that elite few is a sense of self importance that is probably coming through in this post. It's a sense of being valuable and of contributing something special to the world that no one can. It's security in knowing that your coworkers and industry colleagues respect you. That fills an important space in the human psyche. It supercharges the sense of purpose that drives people to choose careers for reasons beyond resource acquisition.
Cons
With the sense of importance also comes a sense of pressure. I remember being a young engineer and always going to somewhere else when I had questions. Now people come to me as often as not and many times I'm the only person really capable of answering. I want to do a good job so it encourages me to grow into my skills further, but it leads to a lot of stress. I work a lot more. I get pulled into a lot more conversations and bugs with no context and asked to figure it out. I miss being invisible when I could avoid any external contacts outside of the weekly meeting where I give a five minute update.
Summary
If it gets to be too much pressure, I could always quit. I hope that doesn't happen though.