I felt incompetent at work this week. This was a significant blow to my morale and had me questioning my decision to change careers at thirty-three. As Jocko Willink would say - “Good!”

There’s no reason go into detail about my mistakes, errors, and general cluelessness as they’re unique to electrical line work, but the gist is that I failed to properly prep material, forgot some necessary safety equipment, and didn’t ask for supervision before doing something I had limited experience doing. That last blunder resulted in having the entire crew redo work we had just done, and a brief dress-down from our foreman.

On my drive home last night I was stuck in my mind and chose to languish there. Yes, I have skills I can use and different mental frameworks I can employ to improve my mood, but I’m human and sometimes we just want to soak in the bog of our perceived inadequacies. Physically drained, I laid on my couch and replayed each mistake from each day. My stupidity became magnified as I recalled each instance, until I begrudgingly fell asleep. Awaking this morning to a new day and no work (four day work weeks rule), I was still upset with myself but considerably less so. The equation of time plus rest had softened my opinion of my performance. Yes, I messed up. Repeatedly. However, I had performed many other tasks to the satisfaction of my crew. The forest of my actions had some trees of error, but most were saplings of skill and knowledge that I am trying my hardest to grow.

I didn’t go to the Elite Lineman Training Institute to learn line work. I went to learn just how little I know about every aspect of this industry and the nuts and bolts of day-to-day work. As I told my foreman: “School was my way of going from completely useless to only slightly useless.” I viewed “slightly useless” as an edge when compared to someone hired off the street, and I was going into this new job with my eyes as wide-open as possible. Knowing that a vast storehouse of practical knowledge lay before me, and that I had to be vigilant for every learning opportunity while on the job.

In short, I’m in the stage that learning theorists call: Conscious Incompetence. There are four stages of learning any skill over a given length of time.

1. Unconscious Incompetence

   • “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

2. Conscious Incompetence

   • “I know what I don’t know.”

3. Conscious Competence

   • “I know what I know.”

4. Unconscious Competence

   • “I’ve forgotten more about this than most will ever know.”

I’m usually in the second stage, valiantly trudging up the “Slope of Enlightenment,” and often hitting a root that sends me tumbling into the “Valley of Despair”. My crew might jokingly say I ascend “Mount Stupid” on a daily basis, but they’re taking care of me and showing me the correct way to do the job because I’ve shown I care and want to be good at this.

My instructor, Waylon Hasty, reminded our class that becoming a lineman is a recipe meant for a crockpot, not a microwave. We would be in a learning crucible — a long process involving intense heat and regular agitation.

I got my full share of heat and agitation this week. Some stuff was thrown at me. Some expletives shouted. Because I expected this, I can weather the storm in the moment, but my perfectionist nature and clinically-depressed mind casts devious dark magic in the hours I’m not working. Which is why I find myself writing. It’s how I analyze myself and how I detach myself from myself. This detachment is critical for those with and without mental illness.

Remembering that you have value independent from where you feel you should be in life is hard to do. It is my hope that chronicling my challenges as an apprentice helps my readers pause and feel their inherent worth even if the crockpot of life is heating up.