Some days, I figure I have a couple of things worked out, and I fancy myself clever for working to live not the other way around. Other times, the universe isn’t what you might call kind and kicks me in the head just enough to remind me I have to work any way I can.

Could be worse – I type type type in a cubicle not dig dig dig in the dirt or bleed bleed bleed to make one piece more. But, with my addictions to having food, clothing and shelter, rather than racing hungry and nekkid in the streets, work must be done.

That’s my preamble. That’s my reality when I pull on my bootstraps or whatever other cliche working stiffs are told and remind myself of all of the choices I made that got me here.

Truth is, somewhere around 1989 or thereabouts, I sorted out a pretty major truth for myself. I like doing something where I’m helping out on something useful and good, but I’m not the captain of the ship. I don’t want to be on the bridge responsible for saving lives, steering clear of the shoals or icebergs. I like being a reliable deckhand, pointing out the rocks up ahead.

In ’89, I had my first not-for-profit gig. In the dark ages, we–the world–hadn’t mapped the human genome, cloning mice was sexy and got magazine covers and tumor suppressor genes were undiscovered. In those same dark ages, grant applications were on paper and giant boxes with multiple copies to hand out to the peer review committees were mailed into government repositories for sorting by human hands.

Copies I made and collated and put in boxes, narratives I edited and budgets I helped craft and checked and re-checked with long strands of old-fashioned calculator tapes were a tiny contribution to science. In small ways I contributed, and in more significant ways, I did too. I helped post docs decode their first grant applications. I sat on the floor and collated appendices alongside a young scientist who was the first to map the Y chromosome. Shit, I even fought another genomic rockstar when his brand new Mac computer was an allowable expenditure under government rules, but he’d have to pony up the cash for KidPix and other software for his kids.

It was fun. I got to hang out with smart people. I got to carve out a corner where I was smart and reliable people myself working alongside them.

When a crazy chain of events ended one job, it was amazing to realize how many friends I had made with the scientists. Real friends, ones where we broke bread, drank beer and danced at weddings together. We joked about putting a special sign in my condo that the leading lab in the country working with listeria had shat in my tiny bathroom. The most senior of the senior scientists called me at home to let me know he’d be a reference for whatever gig was next.

After that, my grants voodoo had me writing budgets for grants discovering the BRCA1 gene, lumpectomies that spared countless breasts, the statistical underrepresentation of African American women in cancer studies and overrepresentation in death. My strength is and was being able to connect what people wanted to do with aligning the bureaucracy to make things work.

Never has anyone said, “Boy howdy, that was some interesting science, but those forms, they were filled out flawlessly.” But, still in all, I have met a lot of people, I have trained a lot of people, and I helped move some stuff along.

I’ve mastered most administrative tasks and gravitated toward supporting executives who run centers and teams. Today the science is social and the work in different areas.

Here’s the thing, though, by definition good administrative support is invisible administrative support. When text reads how the scientists intended and their fingerprints overlay whatever I touch or people remember the meeting content not the dimensions of the conference room or that food, water and caffeine were plentiful but unobtrusive, I’ve done my job well.

When directors are well-prepared and organized or know every detail and bump in the road when they walk into the meeting, even if it’s minutes after a red eye flight, no one has seen me compiling the information they have in hand. When a few hallway chats or emails quiet work teams concerns, no one sees the ghostwriter. When departmental leaders trust me and my team, it’s through relationships I have steadily built. It’s not a coincidence in three decades of work, I’ve beta-tested, gotten equipment early and have special access from every IT department I’ve encountered.

Even when I have had major career setbacks, my performance feedback has been complimentary, and I’ve made friends at every level of the organization. In my current job, a senior manager told me I’m seen as an honest broker, willing to help others and speak up even on the hard issues.

And, even as I do well, including bonuses and other recognition, some people flat out dislike me or disagree with me or my style. I plug on — Mostly, the good outweighs the bad, and no one knows my shortcomings better than me.

But always there comes a time when–because my work is invisible, systems I’ve created are working and second nature or information I’ve created or complied is used by others and absorbed into the tissue of the work–there comes a time when my contributions are forgotten. Coming into work, newer people or growing teams see me only as today’s veteran doing daily work seemingly by rote.

It’s not just me. I see it around me with others like me — middle-aged workers in support roles, because we like it and are good at it and are actively contributing. We are not too stupid or ambitious to have done more with our lives.

Now when people see me, new people, younger and younger people, they don’t really see me. They don’t see my value as a mentor, because on their career paths they self-assuredly know they will do better than me.

Managers see my inevitable, all too human mistakes, which are mostly rare, in a harsh light, because the bar for me is higher, and they no longer afford me the patient tones provided new recruits. Performance reviews evolve and paragraphs are spent on what still can be tweaked rather than all the forgotten moments when things went well or smoothly.

My sisters (they are all women) in arms, other career administrators, face the same challenges. We talk in hushed tones in corners about our jobs. We wonder to each other how to work with new people and come up with plans both formal and blessed by leadership and informally. We give each other advice when new managers come in and smile as we train those with higher salaries and more prestige who will soon also not see our invisible work.

We back each other up, providing advice or a shoulder, when the very thing we took part in creating is torn down or taken, or others casually insult the nature of what we do by choice or actually like to do. We commiserate when someone comes in with a “new” idea and is praised vociferously, an idea that we tried or suggested years before that hadn’t taken root.

We notice when no one asks for our input about things we know. Right now, as I face a management change, I can see in calendars, my teammates’ meetings to discuss what to do. I’m not invited and no one has asked for my input or my colleague’s, even though she and I were put in charge of a similar change in years long past.

Over time we watch how people stop asking us questions on how things work. New people assume we only know the simple tasks or only are driven by maintaining the status quo. New committees form, and slowly my dance card empties.

In my current job there is no special recognition for years of service. Some people are term-limited and the company ethos focuses on them. It’s the only job where I have not gotten even a certificate or paragraph in a newsletter or simple thank you at 5 or 7 or 10 years let alone a gift or bonus. So, it’s no surprise younger and newer workers don’t even learn the veterans’ names.

I brace again for change, and I have to look forward to a new manager. It’s simultaneously daunting and refreshing to face a clean slate.

All I know is I’m not “just an administrator.” I’m an administrator. Somebody’s got to do it.