Confidence Drainer And Booster This new job thing is simultaneously a confidence drainer and a confidence booster for me. You see, I really liked it when I was working on the project team that I have been at for 2.5 years. I don't enjoy documentation, too much "process", or too much red tape. However, my boss said I need more of that so they want to send me out to more enterprise-level situations. Our business has two halves: a project team half and a staffing half (consulting). I am now on the consulting side.

I don't know how anybody else reads the situation, but that was a serious blow to my confidence because it infers that I'm lacking in my ability to work through red tape situations. I would probably call it more of a "lack of desire", poh-TAY-to poh-TAH-to.

On the other hand, I know I was placed in a lose-lose situation and I certainly worked my behind off and did a bang-up job. The best confidence builder that came out of this was all of the support I got when I was getting ready to leave.

"Dude, if you are leaving I'll be leaving a little after."
"Trust me, you were the only one that knows anything around here and it will suck when you are gone."
"Jay, everybody will see how important you were once you are gone and everything falls apart."
"I'm already trying to figure out where I'm working next because I'm not gonna stay if this is how they're gonna play it."
And this one from a client of ours: "What! You're leaving? (sighs) Great...they're taking the only person that understands what's going on and taking him off my project. What are we going to do now? Maybe I should wait until you are back before we start the next set of work."

In the end I am at minimum happier now because my stress level has dropped significantly and I know that I am very good at what I do.  ¶ 9:49 AM