“How was your second day?” asked my best friend when I messaged with her tonight.

“Good,” I said. “But I felt so useless because there are so many things that I can’t do yet because of the language issue. I want to prove that I’m a good addition to the company, and I just feel like i sit and stare now.”

And she had to remind me that it was only my second day, and that people weren’t expecting me to know everything yet.

In fact, they’ve given me no indication that they think I’m doing a bad job. In fact, they’ve been apologizing because they can’t always find me stuff to do.

It’s one of the big drawbacks to having the kind of personality I do (and probably do being a woman used to competitive environments), this constant need to prove that you’re worthy, that you’re not a hassle or wasting anyone’s time. The need to constantly perform.

I’m not saying it’s bad to do a good job. But it’s the part about reasonable expectations that’s the tricky bit.