With this being a long weekend here in the US, I thought I would take some time to write one of my articles. I have been struggling to find the time and motivation to write, but this weekend gave me a perfect time to write one. I was racking my brain about what topic to write about. Databases, Golang, Kubernetes???

I almost settled on starting to write some articles about setting up your own kubernetes cluster from scratch. Then I thought to myself “what the heck do I even know about this?”. Even though all my articles are about me learning along with my audience, for some reason this struck a chord. Not that I did not think I could teach myself these concepts, but I just stopped for a second and got overwhelmed about the things I did not know. I have worked over 15 years in the industry and have learned a heck of a lotta stuff. But there are days and moments I just ask myself “Do you even know how to IT bro?”.

Sharing My Thoughts#

I am not sure what I am going to write here and there is some beauty in that. Most of my articles are planned out a bit. Introduce a subject, explain it, do a real world example. This time I just think I need to spend some time sharing my thoughts. And not sharing my thoughts in a social media type of way. I am not going to be using terms like “Saying the quiet part out loud”, “Louder for the people in the back”, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable”, etc etc. I am not saying everyone that uses those terms are click baity but a lot of them are. I used to click on those articles when I wanted a more human side to the tech world. Sometimes I got some amazing articles about peoples really pouring out their soul about what it was like to be in tech. But sadly many of them were blatant view grabs and a bunch of idioms strung together that used a lot of words to say a whole bunch of nothing.

We talk a lot about imposter syndrome in the tech field, even some companies going as far as running trainings on it. Trainings are great and all don’t get me wrong, but I get so much more from other people talking about their genuine experience. I think there is a great phenomenon going around. A lot more people are open to talking about sensitive topics that used to be taboo to talk about. I remember growing up and that was not the norm. I kept my thoughts to myself, whether it felt like I was not good enough to accomplish a task or the many times I felt like I just did not belong. I am going to try my best to keep this more tech job focused, but no promises I won’t spill a little personal life experience in there.

Everyone Else Knows What They Are Doing Except Me#

The biggest overarching feeling for me is that everyone else knows what they are doing except me. Despite all the evidence to the contrary from years of good job performance and good yearly reviews, there is a nagging noise in my head that crops up and says “Once people figure out you don’t know what you are doing, the charade is over”. I used to think I was unique in this thinking, but I am not, many people have shared they felt the same way. Ironically I think I felt a lot less pressure when I first started working. I was new when I started working in 2011 and my whole career was ahead of me. Of course there was initial pressure because I did not know anything about the field, but no one expected me to. They knew I was a new employee, so I got time-boxed, task-based work and was grinding through it. My co-workers were so kind and helped me learn so much, for that I am forever grateful. Of course there was people along the way that treated work more of a competition and would hide knowledge and keep work flows to themselves. I used to be pretty resentful of those people, why would you do that? What was the point of gate keeping and protecting your domain. As I have gotten older I still don’t agree with their approach, but boy do I understand it so much better. Fear. Fear of being replaced, fear of someone taking over your job, fear that you will be overlooked. Lately fear that AI will eat into my opportunities. These are all real human emotions that I have felt throughout my career. I almost did not write this article because I had feared people would read this article and think I was not a confident employee. But that is not true either, I got plenty of confidence in my abilities, but I got doubts also. I have grown the most from people sharing their own unique experiences, so the least I can do is share my experience.

Holding Myself to an Impossible Standard#

Technology is a HUGE field, and there are new tools and information you got to keep up with every year. Now with AI, there are more new tools and tricks you got to keep up with almost daily. There is no possible way I got the time and effort to learn EVERYTHING. But I still hold myself to that standard that as a senior employee I HAVE to know everything. No one told me I had to, no one is questioning my knowledge, and no one is expecting me to be a demi IT god. But I expect myself to be. I work and have worked with so many amazing and intelligent people that do some of the most amazing work I have ever seen. Just because I am a senior employee does not mean that I need to know ALL the answers, I just have to be willing to listen and embrace solutions that I might not know a lot about. Every time someone comes up with an amazing solution, a small part of me says “Why did I not think of that”? It is not jealousy it is just more self doubt. Realistically we are all different people that think very different ways. On a logical level I totally understand that; on an illogical level I am mentally beating myself up because I should have known how to solve that problem. For me that is the heart of imposter syndrome, holding myself to some impossible high standard that is impossible to live up to.

Lean Into That Uncertainty#

In matter of fact I think one of my biggest strengths is that I am a very open collaborator and even if I am not fully sold on someones solution, I am not going to gate keep them. They might be “right” or “wrong”, but they deserve the same decency that other people have given to me when I wanted to try some crazy ideas. I never want my words and actions to stifle someone’s creativity because “I know better”. Neither do I want my fear of being upstaged to stop me from fully supporting my co-workers in any way I can. That is how I battle it. Lean into that uncertainty. Challenge my own self doubt and say to myself I might not know this topic but we can all learn together. The more I tell people, “I am not sure that will work, but let’s try it!” the more I slowly dismantle all my old thoughts of inadequacy. The truth is that years of experience in the field do mean a lot, but being the most openminded and honest I can be now means more to me.

Be Kind to Myself#

I have talked in the past about my perfectionism and pressure I put on myself. The most relief I have gotten from this “imposter syndrome” is by openly saying “I am not sure how to solve this problem, but together I think we can figure it out”. That keeps me from being in my own head. That keeps me from thinking that I am the only one with the solution. That keeps me from thinking that I NEED to be the hero. I need to continue staying open minded and embrace the unknown. I need to continue realizing that no person could possibly know everything. I need to continue accepting people’s help when I need it. And most importantly I need to be KIND to myself. In my fictitious game of “Among Us”, turns out no one is the imposter, just a bunch of hard working individuals all trying their best everyday and having some fun along the way.