"I am an imposter"

[pinkyfloyd]

[Nobby the Bastard]

The fact that people tend to be promoted up until the level that their incompentence shows is called the 'Peter' principle.
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[The Shaggy D.A.]

[Sun Wukong]

[Kickstart]

Hi

It probably does apply to quite a few people, while others have a very high self opinion.

It certainly applies to me. God knows how someone as generally useless and terminally lazy as me has got anywhere in work, and having been lucky enough to get as far as I have I am not prepared to rock the boat in an attempt to fall a little further up the ladder. Personally I would say that I have noticed a massive disconnect between effort and attainment, and that might be part of it.

I would agree on the comment that it maybe goes with a lack of self esteem. Although whether it is cause or effect I don't know; if you think your yourself as a crap imposter then harder to be hurt by people belittling you. Having said that a crap opinion of yourself doesn't necessarily mean you have a high(er) opinion of most other people.

As to some people who manage the opposite; I used to work for a major utility company. At one stage they employed a new very senior person. He was introduced at a briefing but disappeared within a fortnight. Seems they finally bothered to do some real checking up on him. So it is certainly true that muppets can be employed in senior positions, and I suspect if they can survive a couple of months it is too expensive to reverse the mistake of employing them.

[stinkwheel]

I'm currently busy learning something I already know backwards and inside out having done it on average once a week for the last 16 years. That being TB skin testing. The single most mind-numbingly dull, repetative task I am expected to do in my job.

Some fuckwit has decided I need to be re-acreddited in it every two fucking years and also have to do TEN HOURS of recorded self study on the subject. The organisation responsible for this accreditation clearly know fuck all about the practicalities of what they are teaching so the questions in the assesment more often than not consist of utterly irrelevant minutiae contained within the syllabus, like what this years acronyms stand for. Or what date the first TB test was done. Shit like that which lend themselves to multiple choice questions.

Is the answer:
a) The answer
b) Something that sounds similar to the answer.
c) Something that would have been the answer if you fell for the trick question.
d) Nothing like the answer.

I have been amusing myself by putting blisteringly sarcastic answers in all the online self assessment sections in the certain knowledge nae fucker will read it.

My stated course objective is "To complete this rediculous box-ticking exercise with the minimum possible time and effort expended so I can get on with doing my actual work.". I've told my boss that's the kind of thing I'm putting too.

I don't know how this is relevant to the thread. Something about quality of training?

Fuck it. I'm writing this post up as 30 minutes of online discussion.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Derivative]

I feel it, but I think it's slightly adjusted. Probably related to Tracey's amygdala comment.

It doesn't matter how high my opinion is of myself; what matters is the opinion of others. Because ultimately that's what gets me a position and keeps me in that position.

Mixed in are all the external factors. You could be the best in the world and bringing in mad business but if there's trouble at your company then the whole thing can still crash down around you.

As far as I can see this applies at basically every level. The ownership class is a bit different but they have their own set of worries (what if my cleaner realises how daft this whole situation is and sods off?).

Thinking back, school and university were far better in this respect. There's a nice well defined set of rules. You do A and B, remember C and D, and you get E, and that's that. There's a bit of arbitrariness in stuff like admissions but it's pretty meritocratic.

Actually participating in the economy is different.

[nowhere.elysium]

Eh, I've felt like it in the past, but my job has been sufficiently nebulously defined for me to be able to fuck up a few times with no serious ill effects.

As such, I've decided to go off the deep end myself and start doing small-scale custom prototyping as a business. I have no idea if it's going to work, and I'm learning half the techniques as I go, but given the fact that I've proven to myself that I have the ability to learn and improve at a fair pace, I'm willing to give it a shot.

Tl;dr - yeah, I am sort of an impostor, but I'm OK with that.
____________________
'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[Serendipity]

Yeah I had a fairly ego bruising experience a few years ago.

I was an "IT Consultant" working for a small IT services company in the arse end of nowhere. I was king of my little world and I learnt lots as I was the sole IT guy looking after my own company's environment while being sold out to customers where I'd typically find myself working with people with far less experience than me. Hence why they got a consultant in.

I felt clever and worthwhile. People came to me as the oracle of all knowledge.

Then I applied for and got a job working as a small cog in a large IT department for a Fortune 500 company in The City of London. Holy FUCK! What a change!

I found myself working with some unbelievably talented and intelligent people and suddenly I was the dunce. Probably took more than a year to drag myself up towards their level. And a lot of that time I felt like a fraud.

Still not sure I'm there.... although people treat me like I know what I'm talking about so still feels a bit like I'm faking it sometimes...
____________________
2007 CBF1000-ABS - Commuter heaven | 1994 CBR600FR - Awaiting defibrillation

[Tigerlea]

My understanding of the "Imposter Syndrome" is that you are fully qualified and capable of doing a job but feel as though you shouldn't be there.

Most of the comments I've read here are more along the lines of "I'm not completely qualified, and I'm worried someone will find out".

I think these are two vastly different things..

[Rogerborg]

[pinkyfloyd]

[Tigerlea]

[SophR so good]

Tigerlea is correct. And qualifications, praise, bonuses do not help ease it, in fact they typically make it worse.
____________________
You win again, gravity! - Zap Brannigan, BCF BBQ 2016

[Rogerborg]

[Pie-Roe]

[SophR so good]

[Rogerborg]

[pinkyfloyd]

[Tigerlea]

[owl]

see many people everyday who are either a) extremely good at hiding the fact that they know they are an imposter or b) are blissfully unaware that they are
____________________
Observation is the greatest source of wisdom.

[Rogerborg]

[Sun Wukong]

[SophR so good]

It can be quite crippling but crazy common in academics. I refused to book any events etc before my phd viva as I was convinced I would fail. Everyone told me I wouldn't, and I came out with the most common result of minor corrections. These same people who told me I'd be fine are now doing exactly the same, convinced they will fail, which they won't.
____________________
You win again, gravity! - Zap Brannigan, BCF BBQ 2016

[Kickstart]