It seems the title of my career will be "Undefined" or "Unspecified" when it's all over.
It seems that in every job I've ever had, my supervisors, bosses, and organizations don't quite know what to do with me. I may be hired for a seemingly-concretely defined position (or simply a warm body to perform needed tasks at the time), but as I open my mouth or somehow let slip some other way that I am capable of other tasks, my roles always seem to evolve around ME instead of staying in a defined space. I inevitably get special projects that may or may not go anywhere as the beauracracy floats around. I get asked to offer opinions in meetings that I wonder how I was even invited to be there in the first place. Sometimes I get asked to onboard or train new people because either a) the higher up who is supposed to do doesn't want to (or is not capable/knowledgeable enough), or b) despite being there less than the average time of everyone else I picked up stuff quicker than expected, or c) I'm really the only one in the office with a modicum of insight on the day the new person starts because everyone else is somewhere else (meetings, vacation, off-sight, etc.).
You would think that, after a 26+ year (and counting) career of this ambiguity, I would embrace it. I mean, I do enjoy the freedom that comes from floating around, between, and within job descriptions while getting paid. And yet, because they don't quite know what to do with me, they don't quite know how to see me, so I am often left out or presumed [something, I don't know what] and the only way I can gather any intel on some of my vaguely spoken tasks and ill-defined expectations is by overhearing coworkers talk to each other and/or reading between the lines of every organization-wide commimunication I come across. I function much better if I can understand where my piece fits into the larger puzzle.
Normally, I'm okay with being left alone in my little corner as I am very good at keeping myself busy. But right now, I'm supposed to be a key player in a major procedural initiative in my workplace and I'm being left out of the loop where I'm supposed to be getting some of my assignments for my parts. And I know this is precisely because my coworkers, who are supposed to be funneling said tasks to me, don't know what to do with me because I also get assignments from other offices throughout the state (part of my personal position, not normal to my job classification) and the local office is so used to having only one person do everything my job class is supposed to do for them. They don't want to, or realize, or know how to use me as THEIR asset. I seem to be the only one in my job class having this issue, too. There is another person with the same position in another office who is state-wide instead of simply local, yet the local office where they are housed has embraced them and treats them as one of the local team. My local office doesn't seem to want to make that leap with me. Oh, I get invited to office parties and what-not, but I'm not seen as part of their team, so I am not given assignments to help with their work like I'm supposed to.
You know I, as a flaming introvert, am at an extremely high level of frustration if I'm actually feeling left out now. I'm starting to feel like a transfer student in an 8th grade class where everyone has been together since at least 2nd grade; they're not gonna bully the new kid, but they also don't want to share their homework with them.