Impostor Syndrome Part Deux

I have done a bit more thinking off-and-on since I made my first blog post on Impostor Syndrome.  Since that time, I had to write up my performance self-appraisal at work which is a horrid experience but I powered through.  I have to write mine in the third person because it sounds more professional to me (and really my boss should be the one writing it anyway and wouldn't use "I" for my accomplishments) and it makes it easier to distance myself from the accomplishments in my own head so the impostor syndrome doesn't make me say "BULLSHIT!  You didn't do anything good"  Writing it in third person, it is almost like I am writing about someone else....some magical person who just happens to share the same name as me.

Anyway, back on topic.  I think I have tracked a lot of the basis for my impostor syndrome.  In some past positions, I have been confident and comfortable with what I was doing.  In 2006 I started getting the "You do good work, but it isn't important enough." Then, around late 2007, early 2008 my position changed and I moved to working in a language I hadn't used since college, never liked, and wasn't very comfortable in.  My work was now "more important" but I felt I had shitty output.  I still got good ratings, but I wasn't comfortable with my work.

Then I went into a job that I knew I was good at, but there wasn't enough for me to do.  The work I did was good, but I got a crappy rating (compared to all of the ones I had previously gotten).  I changed jobs again and went back to getting "good" ratings but feeling like my work was crap.  This was again "important" work, but it wasn't the work for me and I moved on.

The work I do now, I am good at (or at least like to think so) but based on promotion feedback, I have a hard time feeling like my work is worth-while at times, so it makes me feel like I don't belong and somehow fooled people into keeping me employed.

Ironically, I was thinking about this post this morning at work, and shortly thereafter two different people asked if I might be interested in another position in the somewhat near future.  Wow...I guess I fooled them too! lol

And now for something completely different.  One of my co-workers thinks my boss is afraid of me.  Not in the "he is going to kill me" sense, but in the "we need to keep him happy or he will stop working here and we are screwed" sense.  This amuses me.