How can I stop fearing the new hire?

August 14, 2008 4:14 PM

I'm working +60 hour weeks, but I'm resistant to my employer hiring someone to help b/c I'm afraid they'll usurp my value within the company. How can I get over this fear?

I realize this may be classic fear of failure conundrum. I have too much work to do, but I'm afraid a new kid on the block will come and "steal my thunder" within the company. That my lack of communication skills will come to front, that 6 months from now, this guy will be my boss and I will be a tool.

I am an UI designer and damn good by most accounts. I suppose my confidence is not where it needs to be. I try to perfectly do everything for everyone to perhaps gain that confidence. My verbal communication skills are just not there and I'm afraid a more extroverted version of myself will demote my impactin the company. Or perhaps they'll just be all around better and I'll come out looking like a schmuck.


How can I snap out of this self-defeating outlook, and perhaps help recruit an employee and make my life better?

I'm sure there's an easy solution (yes, jk).

posted by jacobjacobs to work & money (11 comments total)

Take charge of the hiring process. Bring the new guy in, be his boss, give him all the work you don't want to do, so you can focus on moving up the ladder. You get a better job, he gets yours. Everybody wins.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:23 PM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Think of it this way: they hire a new kid to help you. She does, making the general UI-design-process at your company better/more efficient/faster.
Who ends up looking good? You do.
The real money/power/reputation is not so much in doing things yourself as in being the head of a team getting them done.
posted by signal at 4:30 PM on August 14, 2008

My verbal communication skills are just not there and I'm afraid a more extroverted version of myself will demote my impactin the company. Or perhaps they'll just be all around better and I'll come out looking like a schmuck.

These are reasonable anxieties. Consider doing what I learned in CBT for anxiety: make a list of the realistic outcomes of the scenario and assign a percentage chance that they could happen. Consider carefully: is it really likely?

After analysis, you might actually decided that, yes, there's a good chance that your new minion will supplant you. It's happened to me. But it's just as likely that you will train someone to a point where you can get promoted; it's called 'succession planning'. As signal said, there's something to be said for being a team leader.

And what's the worst that could happen? You make your own services unnecessary and they give you a golden handshake and a great reference. Then you're forced to take your damn good skills and find higher-paying work elsewhere in an office with a mere 35-hour workweek. Darn.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 4:38 PM on August 14, 2008

you're already doing it, aren't you? i mean - breaking out of the self-defeating outlook. take a moment to compare yourself to the guy who posted yesterday asking what was wrong with his tone of voice - you're in a different league. you can see the problem. you've got a good hunch on what you're doing wrong. you're almost home.

you don't get over fear. not completely. you just learn to do things anyway. in this case, you're going to help get a hire. you can't continue with 60+ hour weeks.

so the question really is, i think, how do you handle that? what will be the issues there? one big one is going to be what you do when they don't understand or question something. you need to think about how you would handle that (for example, i know i can become agressive if i am defensive, so i would plan ahead and make sure i had some excuse for a "time out" to collect my thoughts and calm down).

another fear you might have, if you're anything like me, is what to do when they discover where you've cut a corner, or done some dirty hack because you didn't have time to do better. a good tactic there is to let them fix it - it's likely a problem you're aware of, know the solution for, and can explain easily. for them, it's a good learning task.

i don't know if that helps. all i'm saying is i think you've already made the decision. now you need to plan how to handle things as comfortably as possible. once you address some of those fears and see how to handle them, you'll become more relaxed.

finally, you sound like you are decent at your job. in all honesty, the majority of new hires suck. if you get someone who is good it's normally a pleasure, not a problem. you should be more worried that they're going to be a millstone that drags you down...
posted by not sure this is a good idea at 4:39 PM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If you're working 60 hour weeks, your lack of communication and confidence is directly related to your fatigue. That's my experience of long working hours anyway. I'm never more filthy mouthed than when I haven't slept well.
You'll be hiring someone to help you do your job. Yes, you'll delegate tasks to the new chum, but as long as the job remains under your responsibility, you'll get the glory.
The situation of which you have a relatively rational fear is that of someone going over your head to claim attribution for success. Don't worry. No matter how extroverted, nobody likes a striver.
/officepolitician
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:39 PM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

How can I snap out of this self-defeating outlook...?

Mainly addressing this part of your question, just keep telling yourself that if you weren't doing a great job already, they would be looking to replace you, not to hire you an assistant.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 4:48 PM on August 14, 2008

1) Don't you think if you continue to work 60+ hour weeks, you will have a hard time maintaining an acceptable (let alone excellent!) level of quality in your work? IF your quality slowly and consistenly decreases, you won't have any thunder left to steal.

2) Think of a second hire as a fire lit under your ass to stay at the top of your game. The potential competition should just help to continually motivate you do do your best work. Plus, you'll have a much more manageable workload, so you should be able to do your best work in a much more reasonable time frame.

3) IF (heaven forbid) this new person IS in fact even better than you are... think of what you might be able to learn from them. Growth whithin and beyond your position is never a bad thing, and you'll actually have more time to learn. Shoot, maybe they'll be able to help enhance your communications skills..

(Maybe you should even suggest to management that they look for someone with strong communication skills, as this is not your strongest point, and then the two of you together could help to cover each others weeknesses... Management may already know this anyway, and would be impressed by your willingness to grow in this area!)

This hire could be the best possible thing for you!
posted by veronicacorningstone at 5:00 PM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Your fears are reasonable. If you hire someone who communicates better than you, there is a very good chance the new person could steal your thunder, even if they are not as technically skilled as you are. But it sounds like you have to take the risk -- so that life can be livable.

veronicacorningstone, above, gives good advice.

Try to be involved in the hiring process. Ask the applicants about their communication style, and ask for samples of communications documents that were presented to different types of audiences (communications to clients, to upper management, team). If the person can't provide those samples, they aren't an experienced communicator.
If you hire a good communicator, you can require that person to teach you how to communicate better. In your 60 hour week, make the time to study how that person communicates.
posted by valannc at 5:30 PM on August 14, 2008

I used to be you. I HATED the idea of hiring someone else to "help" me because yes it would take away some prestige and value (not really, but that's what I thought at the time), so I fought tooth and nail to not hire any assistants. I had some forced on me anyway, and I gotta tell you, that was the best thing to ever happen to me. I learned how to be a manager instead of just a tech guy, and I now had someone who I could dump the lower end tasks and general maintenance on and get on with moving forward instead of treading water for 12 hours a day.

As long as you don't have a VP foisting their idiot relative on you (been there too :P), I can't see it being anything but a good thing, long term. Another word of advice is that you shoudn't get your underwear in a knot if it turns our your hire's skills outstrip yours in certain areas. There will always be that, and it is an ideal opportunity to learn from them. And you will have areas that your knowledge vastly outstrips theirs.

And, even if your new hire is an across-the-board genius, as long as YOU show that YOU are managing them effectively as a resource, you bask in the reflected glory. As a team leader/manager you shouldn't need to have the same level of how-to knowledge on a given subject, just as long as you know enough to be able to figure it out in a pinch if they get hit by a bus is fine. If they can configure a content switch in 5 minutes and it'd take you 5 hours, but you can still do it, who cares outside of your department, really?
posted by barc0001 at 6:49 PM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

A more evil point view:

one way to prevent your future subordinate from learning enough to school you is to cut up the work you farm out to them into small, meaningless tasks. This way, you maintain the only overall view, while they essentially become an extension of you. For instance, If you were baking pie, only allow him to knead dough, then give it to you. No matter how long they knead dough, they will never learn to bake a pie. You will have the glory of a beautiful cherry cobbler to show to your boss, every time.

Upside, your new mindless drone is useless in terms of promotion - and if they try to stand out at meetings, they don't understand the big picture, and look dumb. When they try to explain how dough is the only important part of the pie, you step in, and explain how a pie really works - all preserves and crust and hot piping goodness. You are clearly the pie master.

On the other hand, like other extensions of you (e.g. hands) they will need constant supervision, commands, and work checking. Their work will suck, because they will not understand the overall aim. Their dough will be perfect for breads, but awful for pie, because they have no idea where their work is going. As a result, you will end up rekneading a shitload of crappy dough.

They also may grow to resent you for this. So, it depends. Are you cool with this, and hoping to leave your position for something better sooner than this game will get old? I would think about this more (I see this crap all the time at work from a few bloodthirsty coworkers) but all this talk about pie makes me want to eat some food. good luck!
posted by wuzandfuzz at 8:08 PM on August 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Ok, deep breath. The first thing you need to do is sit down and list all the stuff you do. Is there any element of it you don't like? The best thing is to work out what assistance would most benefit you. If you want the design, keep the design work but delegate the documentation. Then ensure the hire is for someone good at tech-writing but dis-interested in design. How about testing? Man that scenario setting bores me to tears, so is better done by someone who thrills at the process and interaction.

You may lose control to some degree, but you'll stop juggling and gain massive amounts in focus. As a fellow introvert one of the things I hated was talking to people on the phone when I was deep into edit head space - hated it! So I farmed out the phone stuff to zippy assistant who loved to chat and clearly stated the times when I was not available. It was part of his job to prevent me from being interrupted, and he rocked at it.

If you hire someone ambitious, they may try to find ways to shine, but they will not be after your job (at least not right away ;). This is why you are hiring an assistant, not a peer.

It's scary, but this could be a real boon for you. Good luck!
posted by freya_lamb at 8:46 AM on August 15, 2008