Wow. Moment of
self-realization today at work. I’ve
been going back correcting several months of improperly entered data at the job
I am currently at. I’m through a temp
agency, and was placed here with two other women. I’m the only left, as they keep extending my
placement. That’s good and I should feel
good, but I notice I feel bad that I am “wasting” so much time correcting things
that should have been entered correctly the first time. And the more I go back, or feel I should
double-check something, the more errors I find.
It has been weighing on me.
I have been finding it
tough telling my supervisors this, though they have been supportive and
impressed with my attention to detail. I
think it’s why I’ve been extended, and they’ve told me they wish they could
make me fulltime. I should feel good
about that, but I’ve noticed I feel responsible for the errors. I mean, there’s no way I could have made them
(I had never come across this data before), but I feel nervous and scared when
I find errors and report on them.
It finally occurred to me
today as I was telling my supervisor what I thought had happened. I figured maybe 30% of the data had been
missed (not entered at all, but filed), and that within the data program itself
someone must have selected a large chunk of info and accidently changed it,
screwing up another 20%. She nodded,
saying it was likely, and then kind of gave me a weird look. I realized I was
kind of cowering like a small dog afraid of being kicked. Then I realized after she left that that’s
exactly what I have been feeling.
I was so used to feeling
worthless at my last job, I have forgotten how to interact with confidence.
I know I’m good at what I
do, or I wouldn’t be doing it, but when you constantly find problems and it
puts off other work you were to do, you internalize it as failure. Or I do at any rate. At my last “proper” job, everything that went
wrong was my fault. I repeatedly heard
that from a Board of Directors who couldn’t even be bothered to even read the
first page of my reports which were bullet-pointed. They were unaware of even the structure of
the business, but everything I did was the worst. I was doing badly, and I should feel
badly. And I did.
I know I stayed there about
a year too long, but it’s tough to get over that sense of failure. To try and reason with a belligerent brick
wall. I would spend countless hours
worrying, and tying my self-worth to that job.
It was prestigious, but I was constantly looked down on by others in the
field because I didn’t have the same degree.
It was an abusive relationship but I was sure I could make it work. Leaving felt like failure and I had made that
my life. I sunk into a deep and crippling
depression.
It’s taken me a lot to pull
myself out of that, and get back into the work game. Temping was a way for me to try out my skills
again, and see if there was something I could learn to love again. I rather like what I’m doing now. Sure, I work for a giant conglomerate that placed
me at another giant conglomerate, but I’m okay with being a cog in a wheel
right now. Here they listen, and
appreciate when I explain what’s gone wrong, and how I can fix it. I like the people, the work is challenging,
and I’m good at it. Now I just need to
remember how to translate that into feeling good about me.
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