Impostor Syndrome - or "F__k you, I'm getting away with it!"

 

For years, the phrase "Impostor Syndrome" has been used as a blunt tool to beat folk around the head with, largely centred around the workplace but often leaking into other aspects of a person's life when they believe they are merely 'blagging their way through' something. 

I've suffered from it, well that probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but recently I read a blog post from someone who had similarly suffered from impostor syndrome for decades in their chosen career. 

After taking on a new job, they had their six month evaluation with HR and their line manager. Convinced they were not going to make it past their induction period, they were preparing for the worst. In fact the meeting went in an entirely different direction. 

"Your problem isn't that you're an impostor." the HR person said during the initial conversation. "Your problem is that you believe you are. I'm here to put an end to that and this is how we're going to do it"

With their line manager's consent (and by god, if there's one thing everyone in this world needs it's a line manager who acts like a human being) the person worked with HR on a programme combining full (and attentive) training on the job, coupled with regular sessions of non-work-related therapy to get to the root cause of the problem, the person's problem with their self worth. 

I've worked in IT for decades now, and with each new turn of the page in my career I've always started in jobs suffering chronically from Impostor Syndrome, before establishing a firm groove, identifying a key area that I can specialise in - hell, even excel in, but it does still nag away at the back of my mind. 

Most folk who work in IT will tell you that it's impossible to know everything, to be an expert in everything. More confident members of your team may make you THINK they know everything, but largely their skill (particularly in a rapidly changing and ever evolving playing field) is being 'better at googling' than you are, or more accurately, knowing what to search for to cut to the chase and get a problem solved rather than wasting time trying to establish blame or finding fault with something they (most of the time) have no power to change. 

Quite often the peripheral cause of impostor syndrome is working in a workplace where your experience and professionalism are discounted out of hand. This is not a problem with you, this is a problem with colleagues who treat you that way and in any modern workplace there are mechanisms to deal with that, even if you do not have a sympathetic human line manager.

Acceptance of certain universal truths if you work (and by work I mean "You don't own the company") will also help. For example: 

• Yes, there will always be arseholes. Always. Doesn't matter what you do, what line of work you're in, there will always be arseholes and a lot of the time they are that way because they are covering up their own lack of skills or knowledge. 
• You will always be asked to give more, contribute more, than your working hours or efforts demand. Always. Make it the exception, not the norm if you have to make it at all. 
• Work may take up the most sizeable chunk of your day. Make sure it ends when that time is up. Abruptly if possible. You do not need to make excuses for quitting at quitting time, or starting dead on starting time. 
• You are in that role because you beat everyone else in the interviews. Always remember that. In most modern jobs, it's an achievement in itself to be the one who got hired, not the 20 who got the 'dear john' letter from HR. 
• If you hate your job as much as some folk claim to hate theirs, and feel like you can't move up or on, move sideways but ffs do move. You can spend a lot of time rotting away in a job you hate and it will take a mental toll on you. I speak from experience here. 
• Shitcan impostor syndrome. Swap it for "getting away with it" syndrome instead, the feeling that you are in the job you're in mashing your way through something and damned if you're not doing just fine. 

The workplace can be toxic enough without letting it poison the way you feel and think about yourself. It's time to change and as cheesy and cliched as it sounds, you are the only one who can make that change.