"Advice is what you ask for when you already know the answer to a question but wish you didn't."

Yesterday was a turning point for me at my job.  For the last month I've spent the majority of my time being bored and didn't feel challenged or even utilized.  My manager was away on a month long Eurpoean vacation and just got back last week.  I realized while she was away that I couldn't just let things go on like this because I was REALLY starting to hate my job.  I don't want to hate my job.  I certainly don't want to have to really work to pull myself out of bed every morning.  I just want what the rest of my friends have and that is a job they love and are excited to go to in the mornings.  I just don't feel like I've found that quite yet.

 

Since my manager had just returned from vacation I didn't want to burden her with such a big issue so I waited till this week and decided I needed to talk to her.  So I told her how I felt about not being fully utilized and not really part of the team.  She told me she'd talk to my co-worker, who was also an intern with me but he got a short-term contract after our first rotation ended.  She expressed to me that she would like me to shadow my co-worker and in the event of his absence fill in.  This did not make me feel better. 

 

My manager said she was going to talk to my co-worker because she seemed to express that she didn't feel like he was doing enough to keep me busy.  This of course bothered me because this is not in fact the case.  My co-worker happens to be over-burdened with work at present and despite that has managed to still throw things my way when he can.  I was afraid that my manager would go to him and communicate that I was unhappy with what he had been attempting to do for me, so I decided I'd talk to him myself.

 

He suggested that we go for lunch and discuss the whole situation and find a solution.  The great thing about my co-worker is that he has the unique perspective of having been a intern like me and had spent his first rotation here.  He knew what the environment was like for him and could communicate to me what it is I have to do in order to feel better about my role.

 

He started by explaining to me about how he felt as an intern and how he had not felt like he had the right qualifications or knowledge for the job and therefore felt inadequate to deal with the tasks of a job in this branch.  I had told him I felt like a fish out of water because my title is Business Analyst and all I have is a BA in English and History and a BEd and a diploma in Multimedia Production. No business courses at all unless you count the project management and introduction to small business I took in College.  He countered it by telling me he had a BFA in theatre and his previous boss in this position had a History degree and our director has a degree in Electrical engineering.   He told me that if I think that everyone else knows what they're doing they don't. They are all just really good at faking it till they figure it out.

 

He said the way things work around here is you just find something to do and do it. That if I'm waiting for someone to assign me specific tasks then I'm going to be waiting a long time.  The sad part of this whole discussion was that I didn't need my co-worker to tell me this, I already knew it.  I just has hoped he wasn't right.  As much as freedom is great, it's also scary too. I guess I'm too much of a planner and a thinker. I like to have everything figured out before I start. I want to be able to answer questions if someone asks. 

 

In a way, this is one of the problems I had as a teacher. I felt I had to know all the answers in case the students asked.  It was how I felt I could justify that I was a good enough teacher.  It made perfect sense at the time because how could I teach something I didn't know inside out and backwards.  Well I soon learned that no one can be expected to know everything about any subject.  Most of the other teachers I worked with didn't have all the answers so why would I have to have all the answers.  So I had decided that if a student asked me a question I couldn't answer I'd simply say. "That's a great question. I don't know the answer but I will find out and get back to you with it."  Once I had a way to deal with the situation I felt better.  Maybe that's all I need here too.

 

Once I figure out how I'm going to approach this new assignment and stop thinking I'm expected to know the answers to everything I'll do just fine.  I guess it helps when you know you're not the only one who questions their job and role.  Lunch with my co-worker helped put the whole problem into perspective.  It was great that my co-worker was so candid with me about his own experience.