I'm still here -- barely

I have struggled these past couple of months with a profound case of nervousness, insecurity and self-doubt, primarily brought about by my New Job, which is why I've been absent from your life for so long. I owe you an explanation, if you'll lend me an ear.

The New Job is nothing like I have done before. That's not to say I'm not familiar with the tasks associated with it: I now work for a newspaper software company, of which I am experienced in both sides. I worked in a newsroom of a Large Daily Paper for 15 years, and before that and during that time, I dabbled in scripting and programming, worked for an online news site and, on my own, learned some rudimentary HTML. On face value, I'm the perfect fit for the New Job.

What I was not prepared for were the intangible skills required: a flair for conversation, a flair for persuasion, the ability to think on your feet, the ability to get things done on the fly, talking loud and confidently, nonlinear thinking, presentation skills.

I think like a computer: Words, ideas, concepts are either true or false, black or white. Yes or no. There is no gray. Gray is inefficient. Perhaps that's why I was good at what I did at the Large Daily Paper. I turned raw data into beautiful, symmetrical columns; kerned headlines so that the space between each letter was perfectly balanced; lined up blocks of type down to the point. Not a hair out of place. To the bean-counters, I was called a designer. But honestly, I was good at it not because I had artistic skill but because I was precise, clean, timely, efficient. The copy desk of a newspaper is a white-collar assembly line, and I was a good fit at my station.

To say that the New Job has taken me out of that level of comfort would be the understatement of the century. I am now a business traveler, blindly feeling my way from airport to job site to job site to airport, hoping -- stressing -- that my next flight isn't delayed or canceled. But moreover, I'm meeting-and-greeting; gripping-and-grinning; pretending to lead a group of cynical, skeptical journalists through training sessions on software that's buggy on a good day; struggling to come up with polite words to explain why Adobe InDesign crashed for the nth time.

When I ask coworkers how something is done, there are 10 different answers and 20 different ways to do it, depending on who you ask and who the software customer is. As I said, my brain doesn't work that way. My brain thinks there's one answer to every question. It treats every situation as if it were a Trivial Pursuit card: Sports: Who was the only player in history to win four major NHL awards in one season? Bobby Orr. (Aside: If you're playing that game and you get a historical NHL question to which you don't know the answer, guess either Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr.) Anyway, as I said, I think linearly. I was successful in school because there was typically one answer to a question. You either got it right or you didn't. I might have taken the long way to get there, but eventually, there was only one right answer. As for essay tests, I can say with confidence that I had enough spelling and grammar and regurgitation skills to impress. I might have gotten the answer wrong, but I spewed enough well-written and well-crafted BS to earn a B.

So when I am faced with No Right Answer, or there are 10 different ways to do it depending, I am paralyzed. I cannot proceed. And I am not allowed time to analyze the myriad outcomes and deduce the best course of action. I am a deer in the headlights. And my confidence is shaken.

I hate asking for help to get from Point A to Point B. At the Large Daily Paper, I'd been there so long, I rarely had to ask for help. And I wouldn't anyway if I needed it. I'd just figure it out. At the New Job, I am forced to continually ask, "What does this do?", "Where should I save that?", "Where did that go?," "Why is that in the manual when it doesn't work the way it should?" (Answer: It does -- in the next wersion. Forehead, meet keyboard.) It is incredibly humbling and demoralizing.

I've always struggled with severe insecurity. The New Job has not helped that condition.

Here's what I'm not, never have been and always prayed to God I were: Talkative, eloquent, loud, confident, jovial, witty, thick-skinned, popular. And those are the skills I am reminded I don't possess every single day at the New Job.

I'm sure the insecurity and the "what I'm not" list are inextricably tied.

"They" say it's good to take yourself out of your comfort zone every now and then to develop new skills, to make yourself a better person. The They who said that either must have been in a cushy job they would never leave, or retired.

So now you understand when I say I wasn't prepared for the New Job. I don't possess the necessary intangible skills. My comfort zone hasn't just been taken away. It has been obliterated. For the second time in my life, I have been longing for professional help, either psychological or medicinal.

Current mood: Depressed