Well, to begin with, I'm this week's winner in the, "I Really Suck At What I Do" category. Again.

Ohmigodsoboring story really short:

Of the fourteen 'Nut campaigns I worked on last week, half improved and half slid down into the sub-basement of performance. Of the nineteen 'Nut campaigns I did not get to last week? Half improved and half slid down into the sub-basement of performance.

If I'd laid in bed all last week, eating bon-bons and reading trashy novels, I'd be right where I am now. (Only, you know, with chocolate all over the sheets.)

After four hours of data analysis this morning, I can confidently say that, after those bid increases I told you about, if I'd done nothing else since, all of the campaigns would look better today than they do.

I have trust issues, okay? And I have bigger trust issues with me than with anyone else. That one I know ever believes I know what I'm talking about or know what I'm doing--that's always been a constant in my life.* So much so that I've internalized it and I doubt myself before anyone else has a chance to doubt me.

In this case, it just never occurred to me that I might be doing it more or less "right" and that only the 'Nuts' collective allergy to high bids was to blame for the performance slide.

I guess I'll just write it all off to "education."

____________________________

* I am the Incompetent One. I adopted this role early in life, largely at my mother's urging. She was a woman for whom excelling meant "showing off," especially if you were a girl, and she discouraged that sort of thing. Frequently and firmly. (Girls who show off or seem to be too smart don't get husbands, you know.) If you're a child who, through no fault of their own (genetics or something), is prone to excelling but is willing to do anything for a quiet life, you easily develop the habit of never being "good" at anything.

Also? People like you better if they're better at things than you are. Many of the long-term friendships in my life have been based on me discovering what someone felt was their "specialty" and then making certain, for however many years necessary, that I was always about 50% "worse" at it than they were.

For example, Gidget feels we make a great team because I can't write, which she likes to do, and I'm good at things involving numbers, projects she doesn't like. The fact that the opposite is true--I love trying to write and hate messing with numbers--is something I'm willing to lay aside in my relationship with her.

I am the Incompetent One. As long as I keep my friendships tightly compartmentalized, it works for me. I mean, sure, I set myself up for failure sometimes, but I'm not a doctor or anything, so I can live with the consequences.

What started me off on this tangent, anyhow?

Probably my desire to think about anything but all that wasted time last week....