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How to become a great impostor

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Re: How to become a great impostor

#11

Post by warent »

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

I've heard it said that the art of being a great consultant is knowing which book to read just before a meeting with the client

This is an excellent way of looking at it. Frankly it's not necessarily a bad thing either if the content of the book is valuable and you put it into practice effectively. Then it has the added bonus of really cementing itself in your experience banks.

I like to look at good knowledgable books like having a personal mentor who sits down and patiently monologues about their experience. In reality its hugely useful.

Re: How to become a great impostor

#13

Post by Theodores »

The reliance on documents is interesting. If you are having to ask for proof that someone has passed an exam or obtained a qualification then you have already gone wrong to some extent. Most people never show school or university result certificates ever during their working lives.

Just a name, accent and visual cues are enough if you are white with English as first language. People might ask for paperwork as a formality but the job is going to be yours if recruitment is difficult and there aren't any other applicants. The more specialist the work then the more likely this is to be. In tech this is particularly apparent.

Re: How to become a great impostor

#14

Post by thatoneuser »

Theodores wrote: post #13

The reliance on documents is interesting. If you are having to ask for proof that someone has passed an exam or obtained a qualification then you have already gone wrong to some extent. Most people never show school or university result certificates ever during their working lives. Just a name, accent and visual cues are enough if you are white with English as first language. People might ask for paperwork as a forma…

Are you implying that being white and speaking English means that no one asks you to prove your credentials? Cuz that's bullshit

Re: How to become a great impostor

#15

Post by salty_biscuits »

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

I've heard it said that the art of being a great consultant is knowing which book to read just before a meeting with the client

The manual...

An old engineering manager (mechanical not software) I used to work with always used to say "a consultant is someone 4 pages ahead in the manual".

Re: How to become a great impostor

#16

Post by mieseratte »

KineticLensman wrote: post #10

I've heard it said that the art of being a great consultant is knowing which book to read just before a meeting with the client

This reminds me of a classroom debate from school:

If you, the day before a major surgery, saw your doctor reading through a medical textbook on the topic of your surgery, would you be more or less confident in their abilities?

Some said they wouldn’t trust the doctor, as they held some notion that the doctor should just know these by virtue of their being a doctor. That if they don’t it is a sign of their ill preparedness and lack of ability.

Others had no such issues, that it is legitimate and good that a doctor would be adequately preparing for the surgery by studying.

If you think of things more towards the former, and you end up as a “last minute, read a book” type, as I tend to be, you might wind up feeling like an imposter.

Re: How to become a great impostor

#17

Post by alxlaz »

warent wrote: post #11
KineticLensman wrote: post #10

I've heard it said that the art of being a great consultant is knowing which book to read just before a meeting with the client

This is an excellent way of looking at it. Frankly it's not necessarily a bad thing either if the content of the book is valuable and you put it into practice effectively. Then it has the added bonus of really cementing itself in your experience banks. I like to look at good knowledgable books like having a personal mentor who sits down and patiently monologues about their experience. In reality its hugely useful.

Plus, it's not like it's any different when you're a full-time employee somewhere. No job that you want to bet your career on consists of nothing but stuff you already know how to do.

Some companies understand this and attempt to keep their engineers ahead of the curve -- so you're asked to do something with the understanding that you'll have to figure out how to do it first. Some companies don't do that, and it's up to the engineers to make that happen on their own -- so you often end up reading the book first, then telling whoever is in charge that you can do it. Either way, your regularly end up having to get a few pages ahead in the manual :-).

Re: How to become a great impostor

#18

Post by Fnoord »

Ah, the story of Demara. I read about him in the book "The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It... Every Time" by Maria Konnikova [1]. Recommended read.

My interest isn't so much becoming a great imposter; it is rather how to defend myself and my loved ones against cons. Ie. how to recognize them.

A fiction series about con men which I appreciated is Sneaky Pete [2] and the Spanish series La Casa De Papel (Money Heist) [3]

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25387895-the-confidence-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneaky_Pete

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_Heist

Re: How to become a great impostor

#19

Post by toxik »

Fnoord wrote: post #18

Ah, the story of Demara. I read about him in the book "The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It... Every Time" by Maria Konnikova [1]. Recommended read. My interest isn't so much becoming a great imposter; it is rather how to defend myself and my loved ones against cons. Ie. how to recognize them. A fiction series about con men which I appreciated is Sneaky Pete [2] and the Spanish series La Casa De Papel (Money Heist…

I guess the only way is doing your due diligence on new important people. Check out their references. Lots of work and potentially embarrassing if you’re found out though..

Re: How to become a great impostor

#20

Post by j1elo »

Fnoord wrote: post #18

Ah, the story of Demara. I read about him in the book "The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It... Every Time" by Maria Konnikova [1]. Recommended read. My interest isn't so much becoming a great imposter; it is rather how to defend myself and my loved ones against cons. Ie. how to recognize them. A fiction series about con men which I appreciated is Sneaky Pete [2] and the Spanish series La Casa De Papel (Money Heist…

In Spain it's a fun meme how most foreign movie titles were translated into spanish, totally changing the meaning or simply destroying the original intent of the name.

You could argue some clever titles are not easy to translate, but God knows there was no need to translate "Die Hard" to "Jungla de cristal" (glass jungle). That practice was more prevalent 10-20 years ago, though.

The thing is that now, for one, it happened the other way around with ehm... "Money Heist" what a boring and uninspired name! :-)

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