I did the same thing in my last job.
My manager thought I did excellent work every day, and said things like “good work” at the end of the day when I was on reddit for 5 hours.
I did amazing things that was above my position, so my work was excellent, but it felt so wrong when he said good job when I was pretending.
But the thing is - if they actually view your work as good, both in terms of quality and quantity, then the disjoint is the result of a comparison between your real self and some iteration of your ideal self.
Feeling bad about that is just an exercise in self-abuse. Minimally, you do enough that they see your value, and that’s enough, innit? Although, ideally, it shouldn’t matter at all what they think, but that’s easier said than done.
Yeah. Some imposter syndrome in there for sure. Years of “you can do even better (at school etc) if you just apply yourself” is hard to overcome.
I’m working on the negative self talk. I intelectualize a lot, so logically I know I do a good job, but I don’t feel it. So when I get 'attaboys it makes that disconnect very conscious, and I’d feel better if they just didn’t say anything.
I did the same thing in my last job. My manager thought I did excellent work every day, and said things like “good work” at the end of the day when I was on reddit for 5 hours.
I did amazing things that was above my position, so my work was excellent, but it felt so wrong when he said good job when I was pretending.
Yeah. No. I get that.
But the thing is - if they actually view your work as good, both in terms of quality and quantity, then the disjoint is the result of a comparison between your real self and some iteration of your ideal self.
Feeling bad about that is just an exercise in self-abuse. Minimally, you do enough that they see your value, and that’s enough, innit? Although, ideally, it shouldn’t matter at all what they think, but that’s easier said than done.
Yeah. Some imposter syndrome in there for sure. Years of “you can do even better (at school etc) if you just apply yourself” is hard to overcome.
I’m working on the negative self talk. I intelectualize a lot, so logically I know I do a good job, but I don’t feel it. So when I get 'attaboys it makes that disconnect very conscious, and I’d feel better if they just didn’t say anything.