stably employed but internally screaming — Ask a Manager

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer who was stably employed but internally screaming (#2 at the link)? Here’s the update.

Your advice and the responses to my initial letter were very insightful and validating, and it did help me accept the fact that I just don’t like this job very much. I have less than a year until my retirement account is vested so I’m not planning on leaving before then (unless I come across a really amazing opportunity) but working towards a mental expiration date is helpful.

At the same time, the spiraling I mentioned in my initial letter has, if anything, intensified. Whenever I make even minor mistakes, like submitting an expense sheet with math errors or populating the wrong column in a spreadsheet – annoying but not emergencies – I can’t help dwelling on it and feeling really stupid for a while. As minor as they are, they add up and I don’t want to be the person who submits unreliable work – even when I *think* I’m checking myself, somehow things still slip by that are glaringly obvious in retrospect (the recent letter about double-checking work also applies to me). And often when I ask clarifying or follow-up questions, I feel like I should somehow already know the answer – even when the answer is something I hadn’t even considered, which then makes me feel dumb for not thinking of it. It’s almost like the longer I work there, instead of feeling more secure in my expertise, I feel like more of a failure when I get something wrong (or just need information that, realistically, I have no way of knowing prior to asking). I’m creating a handbook for my position with step-by-step instructions for my recurring projects and my initial pitfalls so I know to avoid them in the future, and having it all written out is calming. But it doesn’t necessarily help with avoiding mistakes in the first place, or for moments where I need to exercise judgment.

Maybe I just haven’t been there long enough yet (the person before me was there for decades, so I feel like my ineptitude is even more glaring). Or maybe this is run-of-the-mill imposter syndrome, and I’m not used to it because I felt useful and needed at my last job, and had been there long enough that I didn’t spend so much time and energy second-guessing myself. Either way, it’s all further evidence that this isn’t the job for me. It also makes me think I should talk to a therapist and figure out the root causes of these feelings. No one has told me my employment is in jeopardy, and there are elements of my job that I enjoy and know I’m good at. But they tend to be one-time outliers, like thinking through how to improve a system, and not the rote tasks that make up the bulk of my day.

I wish I had a more upbeat response, but right now I’m kind of in a holding pattern and focused on keeping my head up at work and having an enriching life outside the office. If anyone has advice about how to stop spiraling, I’d appreciate it.