Can we normalize sucking at stuff?

I suck at stuff.

There, I said it.

There are things in my professional world that I totally and completely suck at.

I want to be good at all the things, but the reality is there are some things that are simply not in my wheelhouse.

Speaking of wheelhouse, I dislike that word and have no idea why.

Wheelhouse.

Nope. Hate it.

ANYWAY, most of our professional lives we are taught to be polished.

Show up.

Show out.

Do all the things.

Succeed.

Repeat.

The cold fact is, we aren’t good at everything.

I suck at a variety of things inside and outside of the workplace.

Most of you know me well enough by now that you know I am going to share those things.

Outside of my professional world, I suck at:

NOT laughing when my son says something witty but sassy.

NOT losing my you know what when my house is not in order.

NOT thinking the clothing in the dryer could use “just one more tumble” because I don’t want to fold it.

NOT laughing at something during a serious event, conversation, or situation.

Controlling the times that I say and think, “That’s what she said”.

Okay listen, I could go on and on.

I will share with you one of my suck moments professionally.

I had worked with a younger teller for awhile and although she had been great at the start, it seemed that she had gotten comfortable enough to disregard common courtesy.

This had been happening for weeks and I had tried my best as member service manager to redirect and see if I could help her get back into her good groove.

Despite my many efforts, it simply wasn’t getting better.

In fact, her attitude only got worse.

It finally came to the day that I needed to let her go.

I went in fairly early as to have privacy before everyone started to arrive for the day.

I admit, before she walked in my palms were sweaty and I had been running through a billion conversations in my mind.

This is what I will say.

This is how I will stand.

This is how my expression will be.

In actuality when the time came and I had to tell her that we were letting her go, she threw her keys at me and said an expletive starting with F followed by YOU before grabbing her purse and heading towards the exit.

“No thank you.”

That’s what I said.

She told me where to go and how to get there and I said NO THANK YOU.

What in the actual what?!

I stood there for a moment with her keys in my hands just pondering the meaning of life.

No thank you.

Goodness Nanci, that was brilliant.

At the end of the day, it was fine.

I mean, she got the drift that she was being fired and was obviously angry about it.

It taught me to be better prepared and to be okay when a curveball (or keys) is thrown your way.

Here are the facts, that was my first fire and I quite literally sucked at it.

In my self-assessment before review time that is exactly what I wrote in my “needs improvement” portion.

We laughed about it during my actual review, but it was true!

“I’ve never had someone be so honest on this.” said my direct supervisor at the time.

Here are other things in my professional career that I suck at:

Putting a fax in the right side up.

Transferring a phone call to another branch. So many buttons…

Putting shredding in evenly so that it doesn’t sound like it’s dying a slow and painful death.

Sitting still for long periods of time

Working quietly

Again, I could go on and on.

Can anyone relate?

We need to normalize our sucky moments, talk about them, laugh at them, and then try it again tomorrow.

It’s ok not to be perfect.

It’s also okay to admit that out loud (or in your review).

We aren’t perfect beings.

Not a single one of us.

It … is … OK!

Now if you will excuse me, I need to give the shredder CPR.