I'll be honest, I never wanted to be a project manager. I'm still not too sure that's what I want to be when I grow up. I started school, along with the majority of Baylor Freshman, as a Biology PreMed Honors Program Nerd. Luckily I came to my senses during my sophomore year and switched to be a Forensic Science major. All the same science ('cept for physics, thankfully), little more social science (yay for anthropology) and lots of dead things. When I started with my current employer, it was 5 months after I graduated with a Master's degree. I was applying everywhere I could, and even took the stupid class to be a substitute teacher, to attempt to make some money. And worst of all I was living with my parents.
When you go to a job fair, you expect the jobs to be at the fair. I went, found nothing of interest, and even got laughed at by one of the companies represented (seriously... the Navy talked to me, I said I could join up, and they laughed as they said sure you can, it's not like you have asthma or anything. oops.) Frustrated, I went to visit my then girlfriend and a few of my old profs in the Criminal Justice building. One of those profs knew someone who know someone who knew the lab director. He made a call, I faxed over my resume (which was basically my address and that I had 2 degrees), and that got me an interview. They flew me over to the lab, and apparently I impressed the lab director and staff since he offered me a job on the spot.
I've worked my way up through the masses, starting as a "Certifying Scientist" looking at lab results. While the lab volume increased almost 2000% (yes, two zero zero zero), I went from lab grunt, a brief stop as department supervisor, a few years as scientific customer service, a stop in IT / operations no man's land, until finally a project guru.
Since I'm not a business person, I don't do traditional PM stuff. For example, I don't want to get my PMP (project management professional) certification, because I think that's just for people who want a new job as a PM. Even so, this non-PM PM has led his company through some of the largest projects it's been involved in. A 3 year project for a system conversion replacing an off-the-shelf product with a home grown, custom built LIMS. The installation of a Customer Relationship Management System for a new department. Countless updates to our portfolio of offerrings. And update/upgrade to our proprietary reporting "stuff" that I can't talk about without being sued three ways from Sunday (I'm fairly certain I'm one of 3 people in my company who understands this thing), that included a massive marketing campaign, LIMS and IT programming, sales and training and a cross country road trip. And most recently, a phased project to update every single test that we have in lab (mostly for efficiency, but there's a few reasons floating out there) that will eventually impact every single department in the company.
So, what have I learned through all this? Most importantly, that no matter what laurels you could rest your hat on, even if you have single handedly saved the company millions of dollars several times over, and have led the largest projects ever undertaken - you don't matter. My department includes 4 people. It's ebbed and flowed over the years, but there are 4 of us right now. 1 is being fired. 1 is quitting. 1 wants to transfer to a new department. So there's me. The right thing to do should be to either promote me to run the department (since I'm qualified) or to give me the option to transfer out of the department. What I'm hearing instead is they're going to bring in 5 or 6 people to rebuild the department, including a new department lead/head. It's just insulting.
I've also learned that PM is basically code word for baby sitting. Execs have a project that needs doing. You need to keep the schedule going, make sure things happen on time and stuff like that. You need to assemble the right team of people to get the work done. You need to make sure that only what supposed to happen actually happens. But I swear the vast majority of my time is spent babysitting. Scheduling calls just to make sure that two people who have offices next to each other talk is just silly.
The final thing I'll mention is this - if it isn't fun (or you can't make it fun) you shouldn't be doing it. I've worked with a few people who really loved their jobs, and made life fun and exciting. I've worked with others who showed up for a paycheck, clocked in @ 9 and out @ 5 and did what they were supposed to and nothing more. If you don't care about fun, and learning, and making a difference, then you're probably not in the right place.
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