Cubicle Thoughts: Personal Growth

I sometimes think all philosophies have a genetic makeup: Inescapable traits and features, which are natural results of the environment from which the philosophy was born. The great philosophies exit the intellectual womb from the highest mountains and the deepest caves, and as a result echo timelessly across the landscape. Mine are spawned from within the walls of my cubicle, on the 5th floor, away from the window, and as a result are too soft for an echo, but too loud for a whisper.

Today I wish to announce an admission of weakness, for I am weak enough to admit I admire the conceited. I admire something more than just the confidence needed to be properly conceited, I admire that feeling of triumph that must come with knowing something is yours and seizing it without reflection.

I've spent the last few months mimicking the conceited, making sharp remarks about what is mine and what is not mine by choice. I think I entertained myself more than my audience, and at last I let the joke get out of hand, I found myself torn. For in the quiet moments, I am anything but conceited. Confidence, where art thou? I hardly feel qualified to handle things for which I am surely over-qualified.

In the working world this is quicksand, not knowing your worth, and I'm starting to really understand this. When I left the bank, my branch manager asked why I wanted to leave. I gave her a lie that ended up being the truth, that I was looking for something new. She told me she wanted to promote me within the branch, at a salary that would likely be a tiny bit higher than what I'm making now. I declined. I visited them a few weeks into my new job, and again declined the opportunity to 'grow' in the bank. My manager is a sweetheart don't get me wrong, my quarrel is with TD. And besides, me, in sales? Yuck.

A month into my new job I'm already starting to see that I could handle a promotion. Which is to say, that I am qualified to handle the job one level higher within my department. It's not even so much about the job, I mean after all, me, in sales? Yuck.

But I'm being asked more and more, "What do YOU want?" Answer aside, (as it always is) I think my environment is starting to warn me that it's time for me to leverage myself into a position where the world is mine, for the taking even.

That's a large step. This promotion would be practice, training me to understand that I am worth more than I am given, and to take more than I am offered. When intentions are pure there is virtue in that, and I don't think I've been corrupted quite yet. So i think I might spend the next few months working towards that. After all, it would be a shame for me to leave the department knowing how to sell everything but myself. And besides, it gives me something to do.