Beyond the Shadow of Self Doubt

I will never complain about remote working. I can drink my own coffee, get to use my own bathroom, and I have no one around to break my sanctity of silence. I can also play my own weirdo music at levels that would probably disturb anyone in a 8 cubicle radius. There’s not a lot of reasons why I’d trade going back into the office daily. However there are time when I desperately miss it. First, I still have a fascination and love of the 1950’s, and 60’s era Bell Labs where innovation and experimentation was the name of the game, and research was the spotlight. Being in person and all working in labs towards a collaborative effort to get to the bottom of a problem is something that remains a distinct nostalgia for a time I wasn’t even around for.

But the second reason is the idea of being assigned to shadow on a project. What’s usually given to interns, and new hires, the mere assignment of this at it’s basic level even rubs me the wrong way. I’m by no means turning my nose up in the air to learning. I’m in Grad school, it’s what I do. However the relegation of the assignment can be quite eye rollingly demeaning. Personal bitterness aside, if I am fated to shadow someone, doing so in person is sort of the preferred method. The week was spent shadowing in name only really. Desperately trying to follow an email chain of working being done that I wasn’t able to actually see being done. With my usual and dread deep seated aversion to asking people for things like umm..oh yea, help, and questions…it’s not an ideal situation. Doing all of this remotely, on paper should be right up my alley. I don’t have to go through the normal fumbling of words, stuttered speech and my clam like nature of tightening down the hatches and running on silent mode. But somehow it doesn’t.

?Being a remote shadow somehow seems even worse. As I reach headlong into 36 years of age, with Grad school entering it’s final year, and me tossing around the idea of doing my PhD… the idea of shadowing someone just to be what would amount being a glorified Xerox function, is a tough pot to simmer. Just like some actors are type cast in specific roles through out their professional careers, there often comes a time (8 years into a company) where you feel your role is forever typecast as someone who shadows.

That all being said, as stated, I do my Grad school work from home, so digging and asking questions that take a while to get a return is common place. However I don’t think in the current work environment that we’ve been pushed into (welcomingly so for some) that it holds as much practical results as it once did. The physical idea of shadowing doesn’t even occur. Most who are reluctant to get on a Zoom, or Teams meeting and have someone sit there watching their every move on their computer seems more invasive. I for one don’t work in a completely linear fashion, so even if I was the one doing the initial work, the person watching me would experience a stop and go motion of work as I split my time between actions.

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Of course I probably would be partially to blame here. I often mentally seek out the role of someone who plays second man and will ask questions first. The veneer of “he’s still learning’ very mint and almost built into my character. Truth be told I proudly wear the moniker of a forever student. I think once we claim we’ve reached a point where we know fully about something, it’s time to move on. That being said, relating to others that you have learned something from your previous outing is the hurdle.

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The week was an odd mix. I came away with a laundry list of questions Some of which, answered by sheer brute force of asking spit fire questions amid the work was going on all via email. Regardless of the medium, clearly I do indeed still had a lot to learn about the project. The growing fear is that it never seems to reach the point where I’ve learned enough as to where I can self sufficiently be responsible to have the spotlight turned to me. Which, as I stated earlier, is probably the last thing that this introvert wants. I think by the very nature of the introversion and someone who seeks his own counsel, that unless I’m projecting this forceful ray of self autonomy, that it’s quite nature for others to make the (often correct, often wrong) assumption that you need to learn XYZ.

?As I type this all, it seems such a contradiction. Where I seek at some level, the ego seeks some level of validation and progression. Spending 8+ years in a position to have your week spent at the kids table is anathema to I believe any person. However my own reluctance to speak out and be a more forceful person runs contrary to any position I’d want. I make no apologies, I am a bizarre human seed.