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Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
11–20 of 97 posts
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#12Here's some scattershot hopefully-positivity.
Keep in mind that a lot of these companies are good at hiring for potential, not for an immediate burst of productivity. You are supposed to have time to figure out how to fit in and how to work with other people in your new environment.
A solid first step in "getting better" is allowing yourself space to not be as good as you want to be, yet.
You don't have to be a copy of your coworkers.
Reaching out to people is something you can learn. It's a skill you may have to explicitly practice, but you can learn it. Make yourself do it at least once a day (more if you feel up to it!), and explicitly congratulate yourself when you actually do.
I think it's worth pointing out that your coworkers may rarely hear you making mistakes or misunderstanding anything, and might see you just as you see them. It's natural for everyone to present strength and hide weakness. You have a chance to make a positive impact on your team as you learn to clarify things as soon as they come up: your teammates might also be afraid to do this, because they also don't see anyone speaking up with non-perfect questions.
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#13I joined a large company last year after years of freelancing and found immediately that one of the skill sets which I had to develop was my ability to talk about technical details. When freelancing I would often be the only person on the project - I would have to talk to clients about the interface and the behaviour, but never about the details. Additionally the way I organize my thoughts about technical things doesn't naturally lend itself to verbalization.
It's been a bit of a struggle and initially the sheer amount of time I had to spend talking to people was a bit exhausting, but FWIW, I did get better at it and I think it was actually very valuable for my growth as a dev. Really, it was unrealistic to think that I could be dropped into a completely different atmosphere and hit the ground running with all the skills I needed. You're probably an overachiever to get hired there in the first place, so the experience of not being great is probably somewhat new to you - the rest of us have to deal with this more regularly ;)
Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#14Have solace in the knowledge that you're not the first or last one to have these thoughts. Some advice from a fellow introvert: - ask all the questions. If things seem 'too quiet', then you're not asking enough - dig deep enough to find out what the active big projects are, what their roadblocks are, and how they fit in with the CEO's vision. (Those high visibility projects have the bonus side effect of making you lo…
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Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#15The quickest way to get comfortable is to ask questions.
Actually, IMO, that's the only way to get comfortable since technically you don't know the ropes yet. Literally the only way.
The difference between a Jr Engineer and every other category is that Jr's don't yet know how to ask questions because they don't yet know what they don't know, but Jr's that learn how to ask quickly advance.
Asking questions gets one through anxiety humps, and also helps you get to know your teammates better (without worrying about all of the other interpersonal baggage that comes with being introverted).
Lastly, for every group there's a person who enjoys answering questions -- find that person!
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#16This is how the brain works. At first, even understanding social norms, the lingo, codebase is hard. People are talking but you're probably only absorbing like 30% of whats said. You read a codebase, and think you 'understand' but really again, only probably 30% is retained.
The brain, memory, and the 'automatic' unconscious mind lag behind and take a lot of stimulus to rewire;you need to give them the inputs they need, and the time to catch up. Once they do, it will be night and day, and you'll start flowing.
The main thing you need to do is to keep bombarding your brain with new information and critical thoughts. Even if you don't have questions, force out some stupid ones to get the questions flowing.
Doing this now, versus after a year, is critical.
So the question really is, what behaviors do you need to start that will allow you to give your brain those critical stimuli?
- Generating questions - actively email or seek answers from colleagues
- Ask to do some pair programming and work through stuff with people, were you assigned a mentor or manager? - Make sure you act VERY POSITIVE, VERY ENGAGED, AND VERY EXCITED, these will make people want to help you.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#17Talk to your manager about your concerns and ask them what their expectations are for your performance. For the 6 months to a year the expectations are honestly pretty low. In the very unlikely case they aren't happy with how you're doing then at least you'll know and have a better idea on what to improve.
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#18> I’m not a collaborator; I’m a recluse.
> What do I do? How do I get better?
What is this "better" you speak of? Sounds like you know yourself well enough. Get a different job. Bigco is not for you. Even once you get familiar with the environment (it will take time, just don't stress about it) and can concentrate on doing your job and not HOW to do your job (if that makes sense), you will still fail at bigco and FA*G (I don't include N). With your personality makeup you are not going to be successful at performance review.
I would even say put in a year to not be a hopper, but it doesn't sound like you will do well and 1 year doesn't look good either. With just 1 month you can easily just not put it on your resume at all.
The other commentors are replying as if you are they. But you are you. Know thyself.
If you were first year out of school I might answer differently but you are old and experienced enough to know what works for you. If at this age you don't even know how to approach being a social animal ... work the way that makes the most of your own skills and personality.
This doesn't sound like normal first month anxiety to me.
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#19Talk to your manager about your concerns and ask them what their expectations are for your performance. For the 6 months to a year the expectations are honestly pretty low. In the very unlikely case they aren't happy with how you're doing then at least you'll know and have a better idea on what to improve.
To add to my patent coment I'm sure you're doing fine. In my experience as long as you are learning stuff in your first month it's fine. Also you mentioned concerns about collaborating and communicating in a large organization, for me those skills took like 2 years to learn after joining somewhere and they seemed happy with that rate of growth
Re: Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?
#20Talk to your manager about your concerns and ask them what their expectations are for your performance. For the 6 months to a year the expectations are honestly pretty low. In the very unlikely case they aren't happy with how you're doing then at least you'll know and have a better idea on what to improve.
Yeah, I constantly tell new devs that I don't expect them be very productive until 6 months in. Prior to that I just expect them to be absorbing as much information as possible and doing minor fixes.