How I got fired

I've been fired twice in my life. One was more difficult than the other.

I've been working as the technology coordinator at my school for about 8 years now. When I got the position it was a breath of fresh air to my career. I was no longer a square peg being forced into a round hole.

At first my job was far more the role of cheerleader and salesperson. My job was to demonstrate, prove, and convince that technology had a role in education. I wrote proposals, did demos, fought for more budget, helped create curriculum, selected software and more.

As I succeeded at my job of cheerleading I began to spend more and more time maintaining and installing hardware and software. I enjoyed this part of my job too. I enjoyed solving puzzles and getting to that moment when everything worked for a teacher who needed it.

Eventually the cheerleading side of my job almost disappeared as technology became part of the lifeblood of my school. I was still enjoying my job, but difficulties were beginning to arise. I was blessed to have the assistance of a skilled technician throughout all of this time period, but I began to need his assistance more and more. He was only part time and just couldn't give it. I still enjoyed pulling computers apart, finding solutions, installing projectors, and all the other parts of my job. The problem was that the two of us could not keep up with the amount of work that needed to be done.

As the technology coordinator it was and is my duty to look at the overall health of IT in my school. I could see the difficulties we were having and it was my responsibility to look for the source. After lots of research, thinking, and experimenting I came to a difficult realization.

The problem was me.

I am a professional and skilled classroom teacher, but I am an amateur technician. Despite how much I enjoyed fixing computers, I wasn't that experienced at it. Something that would take a highly trained technician an hour to fix would take me 3 times as long. I didn't know enough about the many many options out there to find the most cost effective and efficient maintenance solutions. Nor did I have the time or inclination to learn. I am passionate about education, not technology.

I had to make one of the more difficult decisions of my career.

I fired myself.

So let me ask this question of you. Is there something you need to fire yourself from?