There is nothing like a new job to make you question your intelligence. Your competence. How you spent the first 35 years of your career and what happened to all your vaunted abilities. What my new boss was thinking when she hired me. I’m no rocket scientist but I can usually keep up. That’s all changed. I’m sitting in a room full of 20 people who all seem to be speaking Turkish, and I’m just trying to make out a word here and there that sounds familiar.
The risk I’m taking is exposing myself for my raw lack of knowledge. Usually I can fake it. I can nod, look fascinated, or just take a lot of notes. Now I’m so in the dark, I have no choice but to ask the stupid questions and pray for understanding. I play the “new kid” card a dozen times daily, but it’s wearing thin. Nobody remembers what it was like. They pity me my ignorance. I search out the sympathetic souls, and cling to them. I keep telling myself there’s a learning curve in every new job. Just wasn’t counting on it being this steep.
I hate this feeling of not knowing what everyone else knows. I wonder how long it will take before I can speak their language. Suddenly the phrase “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” has a deeper meaning for me.
Randy Foster is a confused communications professional who was recently laid off from her job of 22 years, and thus unemployed for the first time in 34 years. She has no earthly idea what she wants to do with the rest of her life, but figured things can't get any riskier, so what the hell. Randy is also the single mother of a very high maintenance teen-aged daughter who remains the greatest risk of all.
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i have been thinking about your post ever since reading it. this sounds like a hard situation but i’ve got to hasten to add: your bravery and clarity and guts just come shining through in this post. and i just have to believe that those traits are going to serve you well, in this new (challenging) (often hard) setting. going through a similiar (sometimes vexing too) situation, i’m believing that in little ways it’s going to start feeling like you’re practicing a new foreign language, and find some baby-steps in opening your mouth and joining in. that..given time..you’re going to start having some thoughts and ideas and ‘gluing together’ some of these concepts. you’ll speak up when you feel like you can.
i just think that’s true.
Sending you good thoughts for these absorption and gluing-together days
The risk is saying “I don’t know” or I don’t understand.” The greatest risk of all is seeming as if you know and then being found out. You have the courage to do it and it won’t be long, I’m sure, before you’re speaking the same language. Hang in there.
Your new boss saw something valuable she wanted to add to her team: You. I’m pretty sure that’s what she was thinking…not, “Oh goodie…an idiot I can hire to make us all feel smarter.”
Consider the possibility that – while you may not know what everyone else knows – they don’t know what YOU know. Maybe that’s what your new boss was thinking….hmmmm?
It really does take courage to keep asking questions and keep learning. I agree with Suzanne that your new boss hired you because she wanted YOU on her team. In this economy she probably had a lot of qualified applicants, but she chose YOU.
When my husband got promoted a few years ago, he had a knot in his stomach for a long time as he tried to adjust to the new position. But one day it went away. At some point he began to know what he was doing! This will happen for you, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I am with the other wise women here. ‘Nuff said.
You are all such wise women. Thank you for your words of encouragement and support.