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Ask HN: What to do if you're not great at your job
38 points by xupybd on Oct 31, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 27 comments
Has anyone else found they struggle to develop their skills as quickly as their co-workers?

If so how have you dealt with this?

It's depressing to think I'm not as useful to my work place as they need me to be. I don't need to be the best just as compitent as I should be at my level of experience.



This was the entirety of my university life. I was constantly dumbfounded by how my peers could seemingly instantly grasp any number of complicated theories whereas I was always left feeling behind, struggling, and stupid because it would take me 10x longer than them to understand the same principles.

There's a quote by record producer Jimmy Iovine that has always stuck with me since I heard it: "I always felt that I had to work harder than the next guy, just to do as well as the next guy. And to do better than the next guy, I had to just kill."

Unfortunately, there wasn't a cure to this. If they put in 3 hours to learn something I had to put in 30. It took me a while, but I came to realise that there was nothing I could do about this. They either had natural talent, were more intelligent, or some combination of the both. And you know what? That's fine. I still put in all my extra hours, I was still getting passing grades, and I still graduated. Sometimes, the only way for people like me (and by the sounds of it, you) to compete is to just put in more time. But sometimes, that's not enough either. When it comes to that, you have to just realise that comparing yourself to your peers is wasted energy. Are you better than you were yesterday? Yes? Good. That's all that really matters.


Thanks I think you're correct. It's hard to take the clear disapointment from my bosses. But I can't do what I can't do and just have to aim to be better at a pace that I can. Some emotional disipline might be the best way to go. Am I doing better, rather than am I living up to the hopes of my bosses.

It's scary though would I be employable if I disapoint them too much. Will I get a terrible reference? Who knows.

I miss doing labour jobs were I could work my ass of all day and feel like I did a great job.


> It's hard to take the clear disappointment from my bosses.

You should be brave and raise this with your bosses. You may have got the wrong idea!

Ask them how you are doing and trust them to be honest with you. You may be disappointed in yourself whilst they may take a view that you are fine or improving or they are happy to offer help.

Perhaps try to broach the subject with your team, too? They may be supportive if they recognise you are feeling down.


I miss doing labour jobs were I could work my ass of all day and feel like I did a great job.

Nothing at all wrong with that kind of work.


Only the pay. I'd love to go back to that but I wouldn't be able to keep my house and make the change.


Get a different house?


> They either had natural talent, were more intelligent, or some combination of the both.

I highly disagree, and it is most likely because their mental models are better than yours. I recommend you to read Peak[1] to better understand "natural talent".

[1] Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson, Robert Pool


While I agree with this, I do think there's a lot of nuance that points to another direction.

TL;DR - Some people know their workflow for learning while others don't even have a clue that there is such a thing as finding your workflow. I stumbled upon a better workflow through... mostly luck. Anyways here are my two main improvements for programming:

1. Learning how to use a debugger (3xed my programming overnight as a 3rd year CS student).

2. Reading HN almost everyday (I'm not intimidated by CRUD or new technologies that facilitate CRUD at all anymore and, wow, I really used to be).

-- full story --

When I look at my CS experience, I was bad at a couple of things:

1. Mediocre at reasoning through code (not too many sources of indirection).

2. Project setup

Project setup killed my love for web development when it took me a full day to set up a LAMP stack. I did it in the past but for some reason it didn't work and I asked myself: why am I doing this bullshit computer thing, when I can actually just meet people and hang out with them? 6 years later, I tried to take a crack at it again.

I was greeted by the hello world of Java. I didn't get it. What is an argv (not realizing it could be any name)? Why does it need to be an object? Is there research on why OOP is better than procedural? This made programming very very confusing for me.

Some people can see through that, they're capable of ignoring the cruft and carry on. That's why those people were quicker. For me that wasn't the case.

Most of these issues were solved when a good programmer classmate of my taught me how to use a debugger.

I INSTANTLY 3x-ed my productivity (I timed it with features I was making at the time, 10 hours vs. about 3 hours).

And the reason was clear: finally I could see what the programming engine was doing. A lot (not all but a lot) of why questions were immediately answered or eventually answered and I didn't need to see through the cruft, I understood all of it.

Suddenly I catapulted from being a bottom 75% percentile CS student to being in the top 25 percentile. I still wasn't fully there yet (never have been), but it made a huge difference for me.

This does leave for an obvious issue which is: simulating code in my head still isn't my strong suit, but compared to 8 years ago. I'm a lot better at it.

This also applies to mathematics by the way. I have issues with symbol parsing and manipulation. But when you give me a computer graphics project or any visual math project, I'm suddenly a lot better. Once I see and can infer behavior (in an almost anthropomorphic sense), I am suddenly a lot more capable.

So yea long story short: some people found a workflow that suited them and some never knew there are different workflows to learn a certain thing. The issue is that university gives the illusion that there's one workflow as there's always one class, with one textbook and one syllabus. But there isn't, there are multiple ways to learn something. If you find the way that's useful to you, then you're more capable.

Oh, that, and HN also helped quite a bit. Before HN I was intimidated by all kinds of industry best practices and now I realize that at least 50% of them are actually child's play as they all revolve around creating CRUD apps. It's not a question of "will I be able to learn it?" but more a question of "will it be 1 week or 2 days?" but before HN it seemed like an insurmountable task. This is because HN upvotes good quality educational resources.

> *Unfortunately, there wasn't a cure to this. If they put in 3 hours to learn something I had to put in 30. It took me a while, but I came to realise that there was nothing I could do about this. They either had natural talent, were more intelligent, or some combination of the both. And you know what? That's fine. I still put in all my extra hours, I was still getting passing grades, and I still graduated. Sometimes, the only way for people like me (and by the sounds of it, you) to compete is to just put in more time. But sometimes, that's not enough either. When it comes to that, you have to just realise that comparing yourself to your peers is wasted energy. Are you better than you were yesterday? Yes? Good. That's all that really matters.


I've had a number of jobs in my career. In some, I've been great. In others, not very good. I've been pretty much the same person each time, and the descriptions for these jobs have not varied that much. The particulars can really make or break things, though.

People and jobs are like locks and keys. Some fit, some don't, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the key (or the lock) is bad.

If you have the option to look for other positions, inside or outside of this company, you might consider it. It's a lot more fun to be a big fish in a little pond than a tiny one in an ocean.


I agree with this too. Especially if what the company does is not of interest it's also very difficult to care about what you are doing or even improve in it. Just find another position where you fit.


This was going to be my advice. But honestly if you can find a position you are more of a natural in you will feel a lot better about anything without changing anything else.


I like to list some advises from various mentors:

- struggling means you are learning, if things are easy you need to find something new to do

- having self-doubt (imposter syndrome) is common among people, when you gain knowledge, you are confronted with the vastness of it resulting in doubts, only ignorant people feel they know everything, smart and knowledgeable people knows that they have much to learn

- everyone struggles, some are just better at hiding it

- if someone appears to simply "get it", it is more likely that they have put in more time and effort on the topic on the topic, some people are born with the "knack" but rest of us just need to put more effort and time

I still find hope and inspiration from these when times are hard and I struggle/feel stuck etc. :)

[ Edit: Formatting ]


Just keep studying. You probably need to put more effort, of course, don't over do it, but don't waste your time with crap.

I'm one of the slowest learners I know of, but I never give up. I've actually have developed a lot of patience to look at the same thing 100 times until I learn.

I can speak a few languages, code in many languages, moved abroad etc. We have so much time to learn in our lives. If we never stop learning, we can definitely be a tower of knowledge, no matter how big our "learning rate" is.

If you know how compounding interest work, you know that TIME is a more important factor than the INTEREST, as TIME makes things exponential. It might sound a bit cliche and cheap, but don't doubt yourself. Be the one that puts the biggest effort to compensate that. Don't waste your life thinking that you aren't good or fit for something.

If your work is too demanding and nobody fired you, that is fine. Keep going, more effort. If somebody decides to fire you for that reason, there is always less demanding work, you can keep studying and come back to your position and even achieve more later. As long as in the end you can take enough calories and don't die to sickness/violence(which you can't control very well) if you keep putting time into your own improvement you will make it.

The truth is that most people I know, after their 30s, they don't want to learn anymore at all, or they don't even feel that they need to, or that they aren't competent, they are all on auto-pilot. From the 30s to the 70s+ you have most of the people that way and no matter how slow you are to learn, if you just take it seriously, I bet you will be miles away from them.


Thanks for good advice.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121378-atomic-habits


How about thinking of a development plan.

What are you struggling with? Why? How could you improve that? By when? Make those goals SMART.

Get your manager to support you through your plan.

Check in, keep yourself accountable to your goals. See how you’ve grown and celebrate those wins.


Yes! This is a self-perception thing. In reality its all about value that you bring. So many good points are written here on this post. But I would say:

1. Do not compare yourself to peers. Everyone has self-doubts and no one is fantastic at everything. But some will talk a great talk and try to convince others of their prowess. You just need to be you. Only you can sing your song.

2. Add value wherever you can. This is what the business pays you for. This is why they hired you. Think about it, if you were not providing value you would not be there.

3. Own your world. Take responsibility for everything you do. Work hard to do the best you can.

4. Above all, be there for the team. Just like the A-team, its made up of very different people. You are a key part of that team.

5. Finally, for your own peace of mind, learn more and study new things. This will give you the feel-good factor and increase your overall knowledge which will improve your contribution to the work and diminish the self-doubt you are experiencing now.

Keep your chin up. I'm positive you are doing great.


Reframe the problem, look at it from the perspective of value. In most cases people do not want the smartest solution, they just want something that matches their world view.


First, you are probably not so terrible as you think. Impostor syndrome is very common, everyone gets it at some point. Just work hard, apply yourself. Everyone else is just doing their best. I have 25 years as a dev and I've felt out of my depth, didn't know what I was doing many times.


I'm surprised nobody has quoted Meditations by Marcus Aurelius yet.

> Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.- Be it so: but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity.

Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind?

No, by the gods: but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness.


Two particular points that have helped me get better is 1) don't ignore your inner voice when it tells you are have done/are about to do something wrong and 2) keep logs of your tasks through the day. Add recurring tasks to check lists. Automate away dumb work, leaving more time for learning.

RE 1) a lot of my mistakes are the result of/been made worse by ignoring that feeling that things aren't quite right... e.g. an error message in a log that doesn't seem to have had any effect and you have seen before, but you don't quite understand. Don't leave that lie, add it to a TODO, understand it and fix it.

RE 2) grind away problems with first logging your recurring work, then automating away as much work as possible. It can be a complicated script or it can be simply a link in a checklist, anything to save you time. Make sure to make your manager aware of this work, it can go unnoticed otherwise.


Find a coach/mentor/peer who can both assess your current skills and help you level-up.

Assuming there's a specific area you feel weak. Break down the components and systematically work on getting good.

Not unlike a weight training. Build time into your calendar. Today is leg day!


SQL Day and Arm Day are the best workout days of the week. Prove me wrong.


Develop a specialty. There is some topic that your co-workers avoid or joke about, some task they take pains to avoid having to do. Specialize in that. It doesn't have to be anything complicated. You will produce value in greater proportion than the work you have to do.

I started out supporting accounting software and threw myself into things other people were afraid of, like intercompany accounting and general ledger data issues. Be curious about others' blind spots, and people will appreciate it. You'll become the specialist, the expert, the go-to person for something other people know little about.


Just remember that most people aren’t great at their jobs. It’s fine to be average or below average— most people are.

That’s how I deal with it at least. Do enough to not get fired. Make mistakes sometimes. Whatever, not the end of the world.


You need to find what you're good at. Each human is an incredibly complex array of strengths and weaknesses. We all focus on our specific weaknesses and compare ourselves to others by noticing what strengths they have that we don't have. What you need to do is find the strengths you have that others don't have. Chances are there are some.

Also, make sure you care about doing a good job and improving. Most managers out there are dealing with one or two people who seem to not give a shit. Those are are top of mind for the manager. Always give a shit.


remember that there's great value in always being the dumbest person in the room. as long as you're always learning regardless of your learning rate you will leave with much more than you think.

that being said, the point at which you should feel comfortable in a project is the point once you can mimic the whole project yourself. for small projects this may just take a couple months. for large projects this could take much longer.

you can narrow your scope bye fixing the range of types of work. this can be done by restricting yourself to backed, frontend, data... this gives you the opportunity to get better more quickly because you can focus more. this does however limits your contributions, may not always be an option, and maybe over reacting

the other option is to just get better at estimating time. track all of your time, don't report it if you don't have to. if you become good at estimating your time, and use those in your projections, you will feel far more confident. include learning time. this is a skill that most engineers don't have.

it also helps to remember that regardless of how slow you are, any work your complete his work somebody else doesn't have to do. how fast do army not be the most marketable part of who you are. discover if your value add is elsewhere even if it is just a cog that does things that others don't want to. that it value and appreciated. other values may be communication, documentation, education, management, culture, ...

also, when always pushing yourself it's easier to feel behind. you won't need to push yourself your whole life. a co-worker of mine said he would never work at a startup again because he always had to push to learn new technologies and had to wear too many hats. he is an Excellent developer (better than most I know who love working at stadtups) who didn't thrive in that environment.


I would use Yahoo, now Google I use, to look up stuff I didn't know how to do. That was in the late 1990s and it is like reading a tech book. You can catch up if you do that.

Don't let imposter syndrome get you, you get paid for your labor not your skills. Just don't fall behind on your projects, if you do ask for help.




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