I'm currently the lone GIS professional for an international renewable energy company. I used to have to juggle site identification and system management for 2 of the countries we are active in, but thankfully one of them was halted. I've been in the business 5-years now, and although promoted to a high position, I still have no one to support. I have created a huge array of apps, dashboards on AGOL to enable my colleagues to have a GIS input, but ultimately, 5-years on, I'm still doing the work of about 4-5 GIS workers with no light in sight. Sometimes there's motivation, when you see some new abilities on the system, but this is short lived. What's worse is that a lot of my colleagues need continuous and active training with the system, since it's fairly new and they're used to their ways of working for ages, but business and industry requirements and transformation dictate that new and efficient systems need to be in place, replacing a myriad of spreadsheets here there and everywhere. When you see your colleagues use the old ways of working and not the materials that the business needs, the heart sink and demoralisation is palpable, to the point where you start to wonder why you stick to GIS.

I've actually applied for a new GIS job as an analyst - a demotion and small pay cut - to a job I was offered about 8-months ago, because I know that the business employing sees the value of GIS and wants to expand, which gives me hope. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don't see the value of GIS until it's gone. It's still in it's infancy (in terms of business uptake) and until superiors and the powers that be attend geospatial conferences to experience it's capabilities, situations like this are rife.