Perfectionist Rehab

I’m of the opinion that people need to be at least a little delusional to pursue anything in life – whether it be professional athleticism, music, art, politics, civil servitude in all its variants, medicine, the mystical arts, or even quality surveillance.

In order to pursue a career of any sort, the person would need to be confident in their ability to achieve, especially under pressure. They would need to possess motivation, dedication, drive, perseverance, and natural aptitude for the area of expertise. It is this combination of efforts and values that determine an individual’s potential success in their field.

It is more common that the actual indicator for success is the ability to absorb criticism. Hesitancy, or even social resistance, can result in an individual being labeled as ‘arrogant’. A person may even be labeled as arrogant if they display any sort of confidence that the rest of the group thinks is unwarranted. Who do they think they are anyway?

“Shouldn’t you be your biggest fan?”

People often find themselves in situations where they need to advocate for themselves. We often need to justify our choices and the rationale behind them. We must prove that we have ‘earned our stripes’ so to speak, so that people know whether they should listen to what we have to say.

I spent the better part of the last decade working in quality surveillance for a research and development type of product. This distinction is necessary because most frameworks for quality surveillance methodologies were designed for manufacturing. In most instances, quality is necessary for a company and its products to remain competitive in the marketplace. If a company is not producing efficiently, accurately, and consistently they run the risk of losing their customers. In my office, quality surveillance proves to the federal government that the taxpayer is receiving the services they paid for.

I’ve personally trained a few dozen people on quality surveillance systems supporting a federal contract. What I have learned is that there are two types of people who enter this field; the first is the person who believes in the mission. They see themselves as civil servants; they want to help the company produce the best possible product, they want to assist the operators by making their standard operating procedures clearer, they want to make people’s jobs easier, and they want to improve the company’s organizational culture through fostering a collaborative environment. They believe in the service provided for the American population. The second type of person that finds themselves in quality surveillance believes that they know the material better than the rest of the organization, and they use inspection as the caveat for hypercriticism to force their ideals onto the company.

I had a few mentees divided between these two possibilities, however, one in particular stands out.

One individual came to the quality department after having worked in production for about three weeks. The first two weeks were in functional area training for the communications department, and they spent three days released into production. They received their offer letter to work in the quality department on that third day.

This individual had an impressive resume from what I understand, despite having been so young. The point here is that they had the misunderstanding that the reason they received this promotion was their exemplary performance on the floor – they believed that they became a quality inspector because they did the job better than everyone else, that effort was noticed, and the powers-that-be immediately removed them from the production floor so that he could ‘find all the idiots’ through quality inspection.

This individual resisted all coaching and development measures I attempted to employ because they genuinely believed they were too good for their job. On more than one occasion I had to coach them on professionalism because they would refer to production staff as idiots for making simple mistakes – things that occur often through repetitious actions in customer service. It’s normal for staff to miss steps that they understand, simply because they are human. Defects, non-conformances, and errors are not always indicative of insufficient competence. People miss steps even when they understand material simply because they’re human. People can become distracted by their environments and by their personal experiences – procedural missteps happen for everyone¸ even the best performers.

My mentee had limited exposure to customer service work; they didn’t understand the pressure to meet quotas, the distractions that come with working in a ‘phone farm’, and the high-way blindness that results from doing the same monotonous task for eight-hours-a-day. Without this necessary perspective, the person was unable to put themselves into the operator’s shoes. Because of this, they deployed the most hypercritical inspection criteria I have ever seen.

I recommended his termination six months after his promotion because his attitude was detrimental to the mission. He was propagating a negative work environment through his judgmental attitude and simply put – I would dread coming into work because of him. Since he was my mentee, I was responsible for his performance. His success was my success. His failure was my failure. His hypercriticism was my responsibility to correct, but he was wholly un-coachable.

This experience taught me a valuable lesson: you can’t force someone to change.

My mentee genuinely thought he was the smartest person in the room, and that everyone else around him was incompetent.

“If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

I read that quote a few years ago, and I never forgot it. The more I consider its meaning, the deeper the meaning becomes. If you believe you’re the smartest person in the room, you become a drain on your peers. You’re judgmental, critical, and impatient. You prevent yourself from learning new things, and you block yourself off from connection. I believe deeply that to live is synonymous with growth – the only things that stop growing are dead.

If you believe you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re not going to grow there.

I don’t think it will come as a shock that I disdain being referred to as arrogant. I always thought arrogant people were those who thought they knew everything about whatever they were talking about. That they were done learning because they already knew everything there was to know about a topic. I have always had more of the Socratic thought process – I’ve never believed it even possible to know everything there is to know about anything.

It turns out I had no clue what arrogance was.

I researched the definition of the word ‘arrogance’, and I finally understood what people meant. Arrogance isn’t the misguided opinion of omniscience – it’s the overestimation of one’s own abilities, knowledge, and authority.

It’s the belief that you have more to offer than you do.

By extension, this means that if someone labels you as arrogant, they are informing you that they don’t believe you deserve to be as confident as they perceive you to be. They think that you’re clueless. You’re a child who’s using language in an appropriate context without knowing what the definitions are.

You overestimate your own importance.

You have unrealistic opinions about your abilities.

You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are.

You’re not as competent as you think you are.

You’re not as influential as you think you are.

You’re not as important as you think you are.

Is this what maturity is? That I must humble myself into realizing that other people simply don’t receive me in the same manner as I perceive myself? What if I do overestimate my abilities, knowledge, experience, influence, and competence?

Perhaps the antidote to being perceived as arrogant is taking the backseat, refusing to assert oneself, and refraining from offering opinions.

I must consistently restrain myself, so as to avoid imposing myself upon other people –heaven forbid I dare to articulate my thoughts.

Am I arrogant?

“Sit down, little girl. No one cares what you have to say.”

Narcissism as a term is rooted in Greco-Roman mythology, where the archetype Narcissus was beloved by everyone. A nymph named Echo was no exception. Echo was only able to repeat the words of others. She followed Narcissus, repeating his calls through the forest. When she finally caught up to him, Echo embraced Narcissus. Upon his rejection, she ran into hiding. She wasted away grieving her unrequited love. It is said that while her body is gone, her voice remains in the valleys and caves.

The gods decided to punish Narcissus for his treatment of Echo and cursed him to endure her same fate – his affections would only ever be unrequited. This force of karma resulted in Narcissus falling in love with himself when he perceived his own reflection in a body of water.  He became obsessed with his own reflection and found himself unable to redirect his gaze. When he attempted to touch his own image, he found he could not, which furthered his frenzy.

Narcissus implored the gods to allow him to be with his love, demanding the reason for their forced separation. Narcissus lay on the banks, unable to eat or drink, pining away for his true love until his demise. The nymphs pitied Narcissus thus they decided to prepare a funeral for him. When the nymphs returned to retrieve his body, they found it had metamorphosized into a flower. That very same flower is now his namesake.

Narcissism is sensationalized by social media. Anyone possessing any variation of negative attribute is now labeled ‘narcissist’. Formally, a narcissist is an individual that possesses a sense of entitlement to certain conditions or treatments, who possesses a lack of empathy and a need for admiration so deeply rooted that it characterizes one’s personality. Clinically, narcissism suggests a failure to distinguish oneself from situations that do not concern the person in question.

A lesser example of egocentric behavior is determined by making situations ‘all about you’. Say as an example a friend confides a stressful situation to you, and you reply with an anecdote of a similar situation – perhaps with a lesser or more intensive outcome. If the similarity offered is less intensive the person could accuse you of minimizing their situation. If the situation you offer is graver, they could accuse you of ‘one-upping’ their story or being egocentric. This is one of the great frustrations I have had in my life, for I have always been the kind of person who tries to level with other people. I wanted people to feel seen and validated when in my presence, which often led to me offering similarities in conversation in an attempt to do just that.

It is my anecdotal experience that this is ill-advised.