Sticks and Stars

Yesterday my boss and I went out to lunch to discuss work issues. I was kind of nervous about what he wanted to discuss, fearing that my lack of mastery/knowledge/competence might be our main course, but no, it turned out that he wanted to discuss my other team members’ performance because he has concerns. When I eventually uneasily broached the subject of my own performance and (my entire body clenched with anxiety) asked whether he had concerns, he looked surprised and said no, that he thought I was doing very well, that he was “pleased as punch” with my performance and then a bit of ego stroking ensued.

It was such a good conversation to have, not only because I worry so much about how well I’m (not) doing in my job, but also because I was able to ‘fess up to my specific areas of concern and have him either assure me that he wasn’t worried or help me come up with plans to address my issues.

He also pointed out to me that despite my desire to pretend otherwise, my position is not comparable to those of my teammates and that it is essentially a supervisory position and so it’s part of my job to delegate the work that comes into our department and to make use of my coworkers as resources. This was very good for me to hear because I often feel so insecure about my lack of knowledge that I unconsciously think of myself as the most junior member of my team. But really, I’m not, in fact it’s actually the opposite.

He also mentioned some of the skills and abilities that I bring to the position that he thinks are far more important than my skill level with PHP and that made me feel good too because it’s true. People come to me for answers all day long and they do it because I know the answers or because I can work out an answer or because I can troubleshoot well enough to give them some good direction at least. That’s my job and I know that I do that part well.

For the rest of the day yesterday and all day today I felt so much more sure of myself as I tackled my work. It’s so easy for me to focus on everything I don’t know and to blow that up until it’s the only thing I can see but now I feel like what I don’t know has been put into perspective and what I do know has been too. I delegated tasks and answered questions decisively and I felt really good.

I love my job so much. I have never had such an exciting, interesting, challenging, thought provoking job. I look forward to coming to work every day. I never knew what it was like to love a job. I never knew there even was such a thing. I certainly couldn’t imagine ever saying something so bizarre as “I look forward to coming to work every day.” But it’s true.

And loving one’s job adds such sweetness to life! Instead of my job just being something I endure for money, it’s actually something that increases my quality of life. I’m dealing with some stressful times in one part of my personal life and some sad times in another part, but my job is always there to cheer me up. Damn that sounds ridiculous, but it’s really true.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.