Starting a new job isn't easy, I guess. It certainly would be a lot easier if it wasn't for these constantly gnawing thoughts in my head.
When I interviewed I told people how I'm intelligent, a fast learner, have excellent programming skills and so on. I had made up my mind I would not only make an effort but be better than I was while working in UK. When I started work two months ago I wanted to live up to and surpass the promises I made during the interview. I wanted to work hard, learn fast, earn everyone's respect.
Now, two months later, I wonder where I am on that plan. I struggle. I'm sometimes overwhelmed by the amounts of code, even though the product isn't that big yet. I still fail to see the context, how things work together. Even on a small scale. I get confused, I try tracing values through the code and get lost. I stare at bits of code without really seeing the pattern. Then, when I ask and a colleague goes through it with me it's all so clear, so easy, so obvious. Still, the next time round it seems just as difficult again. Then when a colleague helped me with a task it seems he thinks so fast. I found it hard to follow. In the end he just sat in my place and wrote some of the code himself. Of course, that didn't help making me feel any better. And now there's another new colleague who seems so much quicker on the uptake and more professional.
It's not that I don't try and make an effort. Just sometimes I feel that I'm not up to it. That I'm too slow, don't have the talent. At those times I wonder what my colleagues really think about me, and more importantly what the boss thinks of my performance. Is he maybe regretting his decision to hire me? Is he disappointed with what he took for potential? If so, come the end of my probation period, maybe he will "regret to tell me that there is no place for me in their company, after all".
Some people tell me I'm too harsh on myself. But am I really? The thing is that others don't really talk about this. It makes me wonder if I'm alone in this. And I wish people weren't so damn polite. I would like someone to comment on my progress. Is my performance within expected limits or not? Am I just being given difficult tasks or is it that I'm being stupid solving what should be easy assignments?
Could it be that I really lack the talent? And if so where does my talent lie? I would like to think it's in creativity but I have yet to finish any writing that I've started. Then what is it? Languages? Would be a bit too late for that, right, now that I'm not in China anymore.
And I wonder if there will ever be an end to this. Will I ever be as confident as my colleagues are? Given a year or so will I have their snappy competence and be given responsibility for a project? I wish there was not so much an easier but less agonising way through this. Is it really just me?