Friday I was up North helping one of our field offices move. He was in a space too big for just him and my company is trying to save money. They made him find something 1/4 the price. I decided to go there and help since 1) my PI mentioned they were looking for volunteers and 2) it is where I'm from and where my family lives and I was overdue for a visit. This background was just to say that I wasn't in the office Friday but I later saw I had a voice mail from another company we work with and they want to talk about the progress of a particular project that I am now the project manager on.
More background: We recently had an employee quit. He left under good terms for a better job. Him and I were working on this project together, just us, and we hadn't gotten very far by the time he left. I by default have been given this project. It's a rather large project involving no field work. I've only been given little bits and pieces of information about the project and in general when I work on it I feel greatly overwhelmed by the vastness of what needs to be accomplished. I've cut it down into little tasks but all of them are related so when I work on one tasks I read something interesting and get distracted on another tasks. The employee who left has been working in the area for 8 years and did his undergrad and grad work in the area. He was the perfect candidate for this job due to all the knowledge he had about the field area, ect. My role was to aid in his assessment but compiling data, making plots, ect.
As I said I feel very lost but don't even know the right questions to ask to get me on track.
I have a great fear that I am going to sound like an ass on the phone on Tuesday and have been sitting at the computer today trying to piece something together that I can talk about, some kind of update to let this other company know how I am doing. But in all the time I've been sitting here I haven't even opened a file yet about the project.
I fear that my fear of failing is causing me to have a fear of trying.
About Me
- Jennie
- I have a Ph.D. in Geology, which was on groundwater contamination. It took me five years of living on the East Coast and one year in the Midwest. Now I'm back on the West Coast (near the beach!) and have a job with a small consulting firm of around 30 employees. This job is 1 mile from my house. Let's see how I like consulting!
4 comments:
Sounds like a tricky situation, but if anyone can tackle it, you can! Good luck!
You're not an imposter! I think that you'll be able to handle it :-)
"I fear that my fear of failing is causing me to have a fear of trying."
Wow...what a great way to put it. And I know exactly what you mean. Was the call with the client today? Hope it went well and you're feeling more confident about the project.
Thanks for the comments. I did speak with the client today and I didn't sound like an idiot. We mostly talked about the questions I had e-mailed him about and I got some good background information that apparently was discussed at the kick off meeting I didn't go to. Better yet he wants to have a catch up meeting about our work next Tuesday-which is great because now I have a goal and a more concrete task to complete. It helps me if I'm more focused.
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