As you may have guessed from the title, yes, I do work for a central department within my institution. And although it’s undoubtedly fun and interesting, it can also be challenging.
The challenges
Challenge number one: It’s a no-brainer. Working for a central service, you are absolutely in need of numerous non-central departments to do your job. Just in order to plan an event, write up a bid or even schedule a meeting, you have to develop good relations with all the people involved from different departments, as you often have to rely on their knowledge/ expertise/ contacts/ advice/ good will to complete important parts of a project.
Challenge number two: Working for a central department, it’s almost impossible to gain “in-depth expertise” on things. As the remit of central services is extremely broad, more often than not you find yourself covering a big variety of tasks and responsibilities, but without having the time or the resources to actually gain expertise or in-depth knowledge on any particular task. This links with challenge number one, as non-central departments are usually more likely to develop expertise in certain fields, which is why their contribution is necessary to cover our own gaps.
Challenge number three: This one actually links with challenge number two. Because of the traditionally broad remit of central services, they are often the first ones to blame if and when things go wrong, although they may not be directly responsible. Although in-depth knowledge as described in challenge number two is not expected by central departments, they are expected to have a good general knowledge of how things run within different departments, who is who and who does what, and generally be some sort of “supervisor” for the work of non-central departments. Which explains why, when something goes wrong, central departments are normally the first “usual suspects”.
