Work and Self-doubt

[FusionKnight]

I had a kind of strange thing happen to me at work today. I'm not sure what it means, or how I should react. However, it did kind of get past my NT armor and hit me right in my "retarded" F.

I have a bachelor's of science degree in mechanical engineering. I have worked in 6 different engineering jobs at 3 different companies since 2003-ish. I have solid background experience in engineering, though I am still young, and there are many other engineers I work with that have more experience than I do.

I was hired at my current company as a design engineer, which means taking customer specifications and designing a manufacture-able product. I did that for about a year before the bad economy precipitated a re-org here, and I was transferred into the sales department as a product support engineer (i.e. sales engineer). I have learned a lot by being transferred to sales. Ironically, I feel like I'm doing more engineering than before, and I'm learning the sales and marketing fields as well.

Anyway, this morning I was finishing up my yearly self-evaluation (which precedes the actual performance review). I was feeling pretty good about it. I was rating myself (honestly, I believe) as exceeding expectations, and was generally feeling very optimistic about my current job situation.

However, I also requested to be assigned to a new technology project we are starting soon, mainly as a learning opportunity, and so I would be able to have intelligent conversations with customers, and actually help them with their questions and designs in regard to this new technology. My manager thought this was a good idea, so word was passed to the project lead.

He came over later in the day, and basically said he didn't want the project bogged down with dead-weight, and was wondering what I was proposing to bring to the project (as opposed to just using it as a learning experience). This was absolutely a fair question for him to have, and unfortunately because of my new sales position, I didn't really have anything to offer. It became apparent that I have lost some status, and real ability to contribute as an engineer by being in sales.

Rationally, I don't have any complaints because I understand the reasons, it was not personal (the project lead is someone I play cards with at lunch every day, and I get along with well), and it wasn't really a judgment of me as a person.

What I found interesting though, was that my entire mood changed. I went from feeling very positive and optimistic to feeling very worthless, and depressed. All the good old INTP insecurities started popping into my mind, calling into question whether I really ever had any worthy skills, if calling myself an engineer is just self-aggrandizement, if I have any future in the field, if I'm ever going to fit in in the professional world. You know the routine.

Anyway, does anybody else go through drastic swings like this when you are offered objective criticism in a non-confrontational way, but it still bites right to your most vulnerable self-doubts? I find my own assessment of myself debilitating enough... maybe it's just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back?

 

[shoeless]

absolutely. it's why i'm often hesitant to share my writing, at least with anyone who i know will criticize it.

but when i do, i ask for the criticism. even though i know it will hurt like shit. it still helps me improve, even if i feel like i should never write again afterwards.

but if someone criticizes something i'm particularly proud of... it's absolutely down the shitter. i base a lot of my self-worth on the opinions of others, unfortunately.

 

[Agent Intellect]

I don't know how much criticism affects me too negatively, although I'm sure it does at some level. What I do find is that I tend to do things just to make myself appear more capable to other people, which is something that comes from my own self doubt. I tend to put up a front of being the smart guy that everything comes easy to (I guess this is more about academic stuff then work, since a blind retarded baby monkey could do my job).

This comes from my tendency to believe that, no matter what I've achieved or how well I do on something, it's never good enough. I hold myself to obscene standards, and while someone else criticism might not affect me so much because someone else said it, but more that it shows me that someone else can see how inadequate I already believe myself to be.

 

[NoID10ts]

I find myself going above and beyond the call of duty for the express purpose of keeping people from criticizing me at work. One negative statement from someone, and my day turns to shit. This is also why my airbrush business failed. I devoted too much time and charged far too little per project to ever make it successful, just so that I could avoid conflict with customers. Does anyone have a backbone I can borrow?

Fusion, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I have no doubt that you would be a tremendous addition to that team so they are the ones losing out.

 

[Kuu]

I hold myself to obscene standards, and while someone else criticism might not affect me so much because someone else said it, but more that it shows me that someone else can see how inadequate I already believe myself to be.

QFT

 

[Trebuchet]

Anyway, does anybody else go through drastic swings like this when you are offered objective criticism in a non-confrontational way, but it still bites right to your most vulnerable self-doubts? I find my own assessment of myself debilitating enough... maybe it's just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back?

Yes. Let me know if you figure out a way to work around it.

 

[Kidege]

does anybody else go through drastic swings like this when you are offered objective criticism in a non-confrontational way, but it still bites right to your most vulnerable self-doubts?

Yep. It's one of the traits I like less about myself but I don't think it's going away.
In a way it can be useful, as when going "above and beyond" makes you do something nobody else will.

(This is why we all should be independently wealthy. )

 

[fullerene]

Only recently, I have been noticing this sort of thing a lot in myself too. I can actually see why INFPs can use vague feeling-y judgments to find out things and make decisions, because of this, but it's very, very frustrating to me. The situation that brought this about for me was very different, but I'm quite sure we could both take the same lesson from them.

For me it was friends of mine from high school, though. For the better part of 4 years (though it was starting to fall off, towards the end) I hung out with roughly the same people every weekend, or every few weekends, or whatever. We would play ultimate frisbee in the summer, had Halo parties in the winter, played texas hold em (and various other card games) together, etc. I won't deny that a lot of their conversations I found kind of boring, but as long as there was stuff to do, it was enjoyable enough, so I considered them friends and everything.

When we graduated and started to split to colleges, though, I heard less and less from them. Not the normal kind, of people leaving to different colleges, because they all kept in touch with each other, but they gradually just seemed to forget to tell me when stuff was going on. It irritated me because I actually got told by two of them, separately, that I seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth, and that they were why I didn't hang out with them anymore. This was 0% my fault, since the only reason I didn't hang out was because no one ever told me they were doing anything. I did keep in closer contact with one of them who I got along with especially well for a while and he said nobody's ever said anything even close to that they dislike me, but that they thought I was a little strange and he suspected that even though they speak like open-minded people, they still basically want to hang out with people just like themselves. Over the past two years we've (me and the rest of the group) definitely grown off in different directions, are on pleasant terms (one of them was in a lot of my classes, so we talked fairly often), but they don't really make any effort to keep in touch with me, just like I don't make any real effort to keep in touch with them.


So how it's similar: Like you, I don't especially feel like I was "wronged" in any way either. If we're different types of people, then we're different types of people. Nobody was ever mean to me, or anything, as they were all very nice people... and it's not really like you have an obligation to be friends with everyone you meet. And it's not really like they were the only friends I had, because I made others in college, so everything happened... "reasonably." We just sort of lost touch.

What I pulled from this: is that whatever my brain may say, my "self" has obviously hidden some values somewhere in here that I haven't fully found, yet. If I really didn't mind the situation, then I wouldn't be upset--and for most of the time, I'm not upset... but every so often sadness seeps through some cracks somewhere and it'll suddenly make me miserable. Usually only for a night, or just a few hours, but suddenly enough that the people around me must go "wtf? Why is he in such a sulky mood all of a sudden?" Of course this isn't my only cause for sulky moods (just in case someone who knows me reads this, don't get the wrong idea ), but it is one of them.

But it's like some part of my identity was stored up where it probably shouldn't have been, and it makes me sad. I'm sure you've heard boyd say "people get angry whenever something they value has been devalued," and I absolutely agree. In a similar way, I think I would add: "people get sad when a piece of their identity is lost." I suspect that you're upset, even though you weren't really wronged, just because some portion of your identity was tied to being a competent engineer... just like mine probably was tied up in having a group of friends I could fall back on and enjoy myself around. As shifty as they are and (imo) virtually useless for figuring out objective things... feelings are a pretty excellent and relentlessly-honest source of self-knowledge.

 

[truthseeker72]

I have a more pedestrian explanation. INTP's value having well-developed core competencies. When we perceive that they're being questioned, we fall into a sea of self-doubt.

 

[Da Blob]

First off, it sounds like the Project Head knows nothing about team formation, it is a silly question to ask "What can an INTPian contribute to a team?" Ideas, innovations, elegant solutions to pervasive problems, keeping options open etc.

He could have been wrong about your value to that team! On the other hand, there is a slight possibility, that cannot be discounted, that he was correct in his analysis.(?) It is this kind of possibilities that keep my own self-esteem rather low...

Personally, I do not handle criticism very well. I was brought up in an environment where my every action was criticized as a child, so I usually regress to childish defense mechanisms as coping strategies. I react immediately with Denial, get angry and generally confirm my inadequacies in this regard to my critic.

However, afterwards, I will brood over the matter, and spend at great deal of time contemplating how to avoid future criticism by identifying the actions or words that caused the criticism. I feel that being criticized, in itself, indicates that I did make a mistake of some kind. If I was perfect i would be above criticism, so as often as I am criticized, I know that I must make a lot of mistakes...

 

[Demo7]

I agree with ^^^^

OP, I can tell you that your experience is something that I can relate to. I'm not an engineer but work in science and competency and intelligence are things I highly value. Any criticism, even constructive, and I become embarrassed and defensive. I mainly see criticism as a direct attack on my intelligence, and as unnecessary since I'm already very self-critical. The self-doubt and replay analysis go on for days, sometimes weeks.

As I read your post I think "well that's not too bad", but I know if I were in your spot I would feel exactly the same way. The project head also seems to be incorrect in his approach.

I haven't figured it out so I can't give any advice but at sometimes it helps just knowing others go through the same thing.