At my organization I'm the only woman on my team. I'm also the most junior developer in terms of experience. My coworkers are great about helping me when I ask, but in part because part of me believes I don't belong there, I will in fact spend hours beating my face against a brick Google wall trying to solve problems rather than ask for help. If I ask for help, I get it immediately and without fuss; no one is shitty to me about asking for help, and when I apologize (because I can't breathe without apologizing), I am immediately assured that it is not a problem, that they are happy to help. But I am still aware, profoundly, that I don't belong there because I am new to this; because I have to Google things; because I'm still learning. This is straight-up pointless and stupid and yet. Every time I get something right I am so pleased with myself for an entire minute; and then I realize everyone will know in the next five minutes that I am a fraud, and the cycle begins anew.
On a different site, someone posted the question "hey, what's the opposite of impostor syndrome?" and listed off a situation they'd found themselves in, where they were actually quite excellent at a thing, and found it very easy. The conversation went on for some twenty or thirty Twitter-length comments, until someone finally hit on the word "confidence," and then we all just sat there going :o
....anyway. Yeah. my impostor syndrome at work isn't culture-based; it's "I am the only woman" "that one coding class in college convinced me I was literally too stupid to learn how to code so I don't know how I weaseled my way in here but someone will take it away from me because I don't belong here" and also a lot of good old-fashioned anxiety and self-doubt.
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Date: 2019-02-04 06:53 am (UTC)At my organization I'm the only woman on my team. I'm also the most junior developer in terms of experience. My coworkers are great about helping me when I ask, but in part because part of me believes I don't belong there, I will in fact spend hours beating my face against a brick Google wall trying to solve problems rather than ask for help. If I ask for help, I get it immediately and without fuss; no one is shitty to me about asking for help, and when I apologize (because I can't breathe without apologizing), I am immediately assured that it is not a problem, that they are happy to help. But I am still aware, profoundly, that I don't belong there because I am new to this; because I have to Google things; because I'm still learning. This is straight-up pointless and stupid and yet. Every time I get something right I am so pleased with myself for an entire minute; and then I realize everyone will know in the next five minutes that I am a fraud, and the cycle begins anew.
On a different site, someone posted the question "hey, what's the opposite of impostor syndrome?" and listed off a situation they'd found themselves in, where they were actually quite excellent at a thing, and found it very easy. The conversation went on for some twenty or thirty Twitter-length comments, until someone finally hit on the word "confidence," and then we all just sat there going :o
....anyway. Yeah. my impostor syndrome at work isn't culture-based; it's "I am the only woman" "that one coding class in college convinced me I was literally too stupid to learn how to code so I don't know how I weaseled my way in here but someone will take it away from me because I don't belong here" and also a lot of good old-fashioned anxiety and self-doubt.