17 years in SAP...a career old enough to get a job, a learner license & soon old enough to vote...

This SAP industry of ours has been a mainstay over these nearly two decades, while I’ve travelled 20+ countries, done two degrees, had countless hair colours, broken plenty of coffee cups (OK, wine glasses), met literally thousands of amazing people, had one dog, three Jeeps, a kombi van and an enduring obsession with opera. (But on that note, my SAP career has sadly outlived just about all my favourite musicians...)

The point is: I’ve been doing this a long time, and a little too often lately, the internet throws up (pun intended) one of those memes onto my news feed, along the lines of “Do What You Love, or Love What You Do” or “Retire/Die With Memories Not Regrets”.

Do you get those?

Profound little squares with some inspirational background pic and scripted dreamy font, meant to either elicit intense inner reflection or feed the smugness of its click-bait keyboard-warrior author somewhere. But is their point even relevant in SAP?

Because practically everyone falls into SAP by accident.

No-one pretends that “SAP Consultant” beat ‘Astronaut’ or ‘Vet’ as their kindergarten-self’s future goal. If anyone says SAP was their teen aspiration, then their delusion level = high. So where does the deliberateness of choosing to “do what you love” start or fit into the SAP world?

I fell into SAP by accident too, but stuck with it initially as a good way to fund other adventures in diving and travelling, while still holding a candle for a future dream career in a museum or field somewhere. And in raw honesty, I’m still in it now through a paradox of commitment and complacency. 

Now coming into its 17th year, is my SAP career being loved or lamented?

• Pro’s: I love solving problems, getting things done, making connections, seeing things work better, that satisfying sense of finishing a project and that excited buzz of starting a new one.
• Con’s: I don’t love sales spin, mindless transactions, seeing companies reinvent the wheel, or the same-old-same-old issues that keep coming up in the broader industry at large.
• Neutral: I get to work from home a lot … but it can be more like living in an office …

The best part really, is that the SAP industry is a place we can have a “career”, instead of just a ‘job’.

Mine evolved from being a hands-on SAP support consultant putting through transports and resetting passwords, to a project administrator, presales type, recruiter and resource manager, being able to work across delivery, marketing, operations and now strategy and management, working for companies both tiny and massive, across public and private sectors, specialist and general.

It’s been an unmappable career path that both meandered and raced, always more through opportunity than design.

Because SAP is a special industry of innovation and opportunity, there is always potential for the movement, growth and the making of whatever you want to be (now and next).

That’s why my career hasn’t been so much about this either/or meme approach of “doing what I love, or loving what I do”, but far more about a third alternative of approaching work with an open mind, identifying opportunity and adapting to change.

Next time one of those corny meme’s about careers pop up, I will think (but strongly resist the urge to create one along the lines of) : “It is whatever you make of it”. 

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PS. A few other truths after this many years in SAP: I can't believe its been this long, but I’m genuinely grateful to have accidentally ended up here, in much esteemed company, am really looking forward to what happens next and I warmly wish everyone well in their own SAP adventures, whether you’re a long-service contemporary, well into it or just starting out.

Who knows where you’ll end up....

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PPS. Sorry: I’d already demolished the cupcake before the pic. But yes, it was great  :D   

And thanks for spending some time with me on this nostalgic reverie – it didn’t fit in a meme.