“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don’t freeze up.” ~ Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again
I came out of an 8 o’clock meeting on Monday morning with the thought, “Well, at least I still have the whole week ahead for things to improve.” They didn’t. Not really. Not until today. It’s been a difficult week.
One of the steepest learning curves of a new job is less often the tasks at hand, but more learning the people. People make life really great, really difficult, and everything in between. That’s pretty much how it goes, unless we live alone on an island. And no one lives alone on an island. Except Tom Hanks in that movie a few years back. Even then, he had Wilson. My work during the earlier part of the week was not critiqued by inanimate objects and/or sporting equipment. It was reviewed and editorialized and shredded to bits before being put back together into something that only marginally resembled what I started off with by people. I admit it … it hurt. And yes, it also made me a little angry.
I had to do a lot of self-talk to keep going. I said to myself, “If someone you know came to you and expressed to you what you’re feeling right now, you would tell them without hesitation that it takes a lot of courage to take chances, to try new things, to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone.” But if you’re like me, you probably find it much easier to encourage others than to do the same for yourself.
There was, of course, nothing personal in the assessment of the work that I’d done. I had to speak before the Committee on Scientific Research Affairs to explain the findings of a user survey that I carried out for a core service recently. I was representing my department in what I was saying and those who are responsible for it just wanted to make sure that I said the right things, in the right way, to highlight the right points. Still, while it may not have been intentional, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being spoken to like I was a complete newcomer to this business, as if I had never presented anything to any audience ever before.
I walked into my house on Monday night and shouted to my animals, “DON’T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?!?!?!” (It’s good to have animals during moments like this. They never judge you for any angst-ridden, bruised-ego-induced outbursts.)
As I talked about it more with my spouse later that evening and then I paid attention to it more during meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, I realized a couple of things. First, the folks that I work for and with now DON’T know who I am. I get invited to speak at conferences, be on task forces, elected to offices in the world of libraries because my peers in these organizations do know me. They know what I do well. They know how I say things, how I do things, how I believe certain things and express them. And yes, it is a nice ego boost when people like you and respect you for those very things; when they like you and respect you for yourself. But it takes awhile for people to get to know you. It takes work and efforts and showing up and volunteering and writing a blog post week after week.
I have none of this going for myself right now and let me tell you, it’s hard. It’s harder than I thought it would be.
But I also noticed a second thing about my new environs this week and that’s that there is a tendency for people to work collaboratively in a way that is more critical than perhaps I’m used to. On Tuesday morning, I worked for two and a half hours with a couple of docs (an MD and a PhD) on the same presentation. We talked through everything. Every piece – not just what I’d put together, but what they’d put together, too – was up for critique. Everything got moved around and rearranged. Parts got lopped off. I was struggling again to hear people telling me that I needed to say something this way, not that way.
Again, I wanted to shout, “I know how to talk to people, for <expletive> sake!!” But along the way somewhere, I was able to step back from my frustrations and hurt feelings a moment to realize we were all in this together. The process that I was a part of was simply the process that’s the norm for these people. The people who I don’t know and who don’t know me, but yet we work together now.
Yes, I do think that the steepest learning curve involves learning the new people. Coming out of yesterday morning’s presentation, one of my new co-workers said to me, “You’re pretty good at that.” I replied, “Yes, I know. And thanks for saying so.”
We’re getting to know each other. Full speed ahead!
Damn the torpedoes!
A Librarian by Any Other Name 
You made me smile. I have encountered (and still do) what you are describing. It takes time and it is frustrating but I love seeing the aha moment when they realize I know my sh*t.
It even happens to me a lot in my “stay at home mom” community where moms are more into Pinterest than sports. When dads realize I actually know the rules and can follow the game that my children are playing, the looks of surprise I get from them sends me and my husband into secret giggles. Interestingly some dads can handle it and talk to me like a sports peer. Other dads remain confused as to how to talk to me because I don’t fit the mold.
However, I think it is especially frustrating when it happens in your career…because after all didn’t these people hire you because you are good at what you do. I encounter it in the work world whenever I move outside of my library sphere. I believe heavily in moving beyond the library sphere. Disproving the preconceived notions of what I can and can’t do can be challenging outside of the library. I have found once that I am able to prove myself to those outside of my library sphere they become some of my biggest advocates and trusted peers. Unlike the dads, I have yet run into somebody at work who remains confused once I break their mold.
Thanks, Michelle! I love your last line.