How do I cope when my work is only noticed when it goes wrong?

You hold the whole place together, and the only time anyone notices is when something breaks. The rest of the time you feel like furniture, always there, never seen. That is a lonely way to be essential. There is a hard truth in good support work: the better you do it, the more invisible it becomes, because smoothness looks like nothing happening. That is not fair, but it also is not a measure of your worth. The quiet you keep is real work, even when no one claps for it. You know what would fall apart without you, even if they have forgotten. So stop waiting to be noticed to feel valuable, that well runs dry. Keep a private record of what you actually hold up, and let it feed you. Where you can, make your work a little visible: a short note on what you handled, a quiet word to someone who should know. You are not furniture. You are the reason the room works.