Sins of the past

It's evaluation time at the university. We've known about it for a month now and I've been anxious about it since. There is no logical reason for me to be anxious about it because I've gotten excellent evaluations since I started working here. But during the year, I'm burdened with feelings that I'm inadequate, admit to not knowing the answer more times than I should and just general I-suck-at-my-job feelings. Plus until recently, three times out of five, I'd walk in late. Not 15, 20 or 30, but five, seven or 10 minutes late.

For the past three years I've expected to go in to his office and see him pull out of list of all the things I've done wrong. See, that's what used to happen at my old job. Reviews consisted of things like: disagreed with news director over news value of bum stabbing suicide story; didn't anticipate floods in July and didn't order food for news crew until after lunch; isn't proactive (as a receptionist? I think as long as there were office supplies, toner in the copier and utensils in the break room, I was doing enough of being proactive; but I digress.) Plus I was expected to come up with goals for six months, three years and five years and come up with three things I liked about my job. My responses? "I like that I work downtown." Even that was a lie.

But my current boss is really really nice about it. He had great things to say and said he was confident in my abilities, amazed I didn't take more time off while R was sick or use Dan'l as an excuse for more time off; basically, I'm fabulous.

However, I was exuberant only for a few minutes because then I felt guilty because he had such nice things to say about me, is very supportive and I take advantage of his good nature.

I guess it's going to take a while for me to get rid of whatever trauma I endured.