Blue Scream of Jeff: Now I know how Jon Snow felt…

Monday, October 30, 2017

Now I know how Jon Snow felt…

It’s hard when you go from being the smartest guy in the room, to the guy who knows nothing.

That may seem obvious, but it’s something I’m learning the hard way with my recent job change.

At my old place, I knew the computer systems inside-and-out. I knew how almost all the applications we used worked as well as their quirks and common problems. Most importantly, I knew how to either work around those issues or fix them and do it fairly quickly. I also knew the competency level of just about all my users so I knew exactly how to guide each of them through their own little IT crisis.

That made me the proverbial “smartest guy in the room,” something my old users claimed I was quite a bit.

But like Jon Snow stranded among the Wildlings of Westeros on “Game of Thrones,” I find “I know nothing” at my new job.

I know this is to be expected. It took me over 20 years at my last place to gain all that knowledge, and I’ve only been at my new job little over a month now.

Still, it’s hard.

I feel as lost as a first-grader among high-school seniors, which is ironic, as I’m probably the oldest systems engineer in the office, and practically old enough to be most of their fathers. It’s like my 20 years in IT have meant nothing.

It’s also quite a blow to my ego and self-esteem. I really did try NOT let my former colleagues' complements, especially all their kind words during my final weeks there – go to my head. But apparently they did, because when I started, I thought I could just walk into this new job and within a week or two be totally up-to-speed.

I know that seems really egotistical, because the difference in supporting just one company in an internal IT department and being a “hired gun” working at a Managed Services Provider and having to deal with many diverse setups are light-years apart. But I don’t think I’m being an egotist.

I just hold myself to high standards.

Higher than my new bosses, I might add. They and my new and colleagues seem to think I’m coming along just fine and doing a good job. But I don’t. I feel like I should be doing better and feel guilty that I’m not, which I guess just goes to show you that I’d be a really horrible boss, who'd set expectations no one could probably meet.

I know I shouldn’t be listening to my inner critic, who is making me doubt my own competency. I know from experience that change is hard. I can remember when we adopted our current dog and how difficult that transition was. I doubted if we made the right decision and wondered how I was going to get through the next month with him, let alone the next year. And now four years on, I can’t image life without him.

So right now, I have to keep telling myself to relax and give it about a year, because I’m reasonably sure that 11 months from now, I’ll look back on this period and wonder what all the drama was about.

And hopefully by then, if I’m not the smartest guy in the room, at least I won’t be the dumbest anymore.