Dear SaaS Ops Engineer,…
You are not the owner! — You are doing well… Ooin
Pssst…
That buggy SaaS App?
You are not the owner.
That SaaS App with the persisting end-user issue?
You are not the owner.
That one SaaS App with the painful, tedious process?
The one with which all of your tested and trusted tricks/workarounds has refused to work? Yes, that one!
You are not the owner.
Ahh…Yes!
The one whose reporting prowess is so poor, you have to go down the long route of data transformation just so the dependent teams can get the much needed, much pressing useful info — week-in/week-out? (no pressure 😊)
You are not the owner.
The one that has refused to get in line with its peers and hop onboard your automation platform so work can be fun and easy;…less wonky; less error-prone; less manual?
You are not the owner.
And that one with the terrible interface?
You are not the owner.
You are but one user — just one with elevated privileges.
An administrator yes, albeit just a user and NOT the Owner!
Understandably, not only does this “entitlement” or burden make you powerful — somewhat above all the others (end-users), constantly reminding yourself to… “stay empathic with the simple folks” 🤭
It also dumps on you the huge responsibility of a caretaker; the messiah; the problem solver; the one with the antidote; the ‘Captain Marvel’ everyone’s been waiting for to come restore all that’s been lost. — again, no pressure
Making you feel it is absolutely up to you alone, no one else.
While it is great to take ownership of the situation, you’ve gotta remember that — you are simply NOT THE OWNER.
It’s okay to not know the solution to that nasty little problem!
We tend to forget that…
Only to get stuck in a vicious loop of :
investigating problem — figuring out a fix — deploying fix — back to investigating.
sometimes, it goes :
Investigating problem1 — figuring out a fix — deploying fix — discovering new problem2 — back to investigating
Sadly, this could go on for hours and sometimes days — painful, frustrating days. 🤕
Meanwhile, you must keep the affected user happy!
God help you, he/she isn’t that one pesky end-user everyone scrams from (we all have one of those 😁)
You are stuck.
You are frustrated!
You are strained!!
You are scared; probably beginning to Panic.
You feel utterly helpless, not to mention inept and unqualified to be where you are.
You are…sad.
💡
Then you remember (or, are reminded) — you are not the owner of the App!
The Owner — Service Provider is one easy mail/chat away!
And just like that, the matter is resolved.
Dear SaaSOps Engr.,
When you do hit that snag, having exhausted all of your solutions; tricks, workarounds, fixes, and colleagues?
Do not fret, do not ‘lose face’, do not despair.
Do not waste valuable time; do not mistakenly do more damage; do not suffer!
Do not go down that rabbit hole.
Simply recall that you are not the owner and exercise your right as a service-user with your service-provider.
Stay sharp, smart, powerful, and elegant!
Because… You are doing well…Ooin
P.S
Ooinis nothing more than a Nigerian cliche word with no meaning - simply for effects.
