Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
I just got a frantic sounding e-mail message from a friend. She’ll be OK, because she’s got a strong personality, but she’s a bit down right now. I understand.
She just graduated college about two months ago, and she’s a few weeks into her first job, and this week her boss and her senior sat her down and gave her a talking-to. It basically comes down to a personality conflict. And they gave her a list of things she had to change. They’re almost all personality traits.
I used to wear a lot of masks. I refused to wear them for a really long time. In grade school, I was what I was, take it or leave it. And what I was was a Kansas City native in a small town in eastern Missouri. I didn’t want to be a hick, and I didn’t want to grow up to be a farmer, a miner, or a truck driver. (I wanted to be CEO of IBM, or president of the United States. I had ambition, probably too much ambition. Some people didn’t like that.) I was the ultimate outsider, and by the time I was in 7th grade, my best friends were my dog, my Commodore, and my notebook.
Mercifully, we moved to St. Louis the next year. I got to start over. And I started over by wearing a mask. I got in trouble by showing ambition. So I stopped showing it when I was around most people. That was the biggest thing. St. Louis was a lot better, because I had friends who were actual, real, live human beings up there. But I wasn’t happy.
High school was tough, especially at first. It was jarring, so I forgot to wear my mask all the time. I had friends–the lunch table I sat at was always full–but I had plenty of enemies too. I got in fights. And if I had a nickel for every rumor that circulated about me… Eventually I learned to be entertained by that. Those rumors were a whole lot more interesting than the life I was living, or for that matter, the life most people were living. Eventually I reached a point where I didn’t wear masks around guys all that much anymore, and in my sophomore and junior years, I only got into one fight apiece. I didn’t get into any my senior year. But I still tried to figure out what girls wanted me to be, so I wore masks around them all the time. Needless to say, I had a hard time getting dates. Who wants to date a faker?
College was more of the same. No one really knew what to make of me, and at this point, I only have one close friend that I made in college that I’m still in contact with. I was wildly successful–one of the most prolific and widespread writers in my class; I nearly graduated with honors; I was treasurer, publicity, and scholarship chairman of my fraternity; I was the longest-running columnist of the 1990s in the official student newspaper; and after they kicked me off staff for being too conservative, I jumped ship and became managing editor of a rival Greek-targeted newspaper. I was successful and lots of people wanted to have a beer with me. But I didn’t know who I was anymore and I was always depressed.
I took my first job, with the university that gave me my diploma. I started dating a girl who knew who she wanted to marry. But that guy was engaged, so she decided to make me into him instead. I let her. I figured the mask she designed wouldn’t be any worse than the masks I designed–hey, she was a graphic designer, after all. My first job bit. I hated going to work. She made a nice distraction, so it was tolerable for a while. But her mask made me lose credibility. Everyone knew me–I’d been there four years as a student–and they knew that thing walking around in Dave’s body wasn’t really Dave. Eventually she realized she wouldn’t be able to make me into anything but a counterfeit, so she told me to take a hike. For whatever reason, I kept on wearing the mask. The depression kicked in harder and heavier, and my work performance tanked.
I went to a grueling 4-session seminar after I bottomed out. They helped me uncover the real me under those 10 years’ worth of masks. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. But once I got out, wow! Someone actually saw me smile once. Work became mostly tolerable. I still wasn’t Mr. Popularity at work, but most people were a lot more pleasant. And when it became evident that I couldn’t advance and that certain unpleasant people weren’t ever going to cease being unpleasant, I left. I took a job in St. Louis.
I wasn’t Mr. Popularity there either, but my current employer values a job well done, and the majority of people I work with like me. And even though sometimes I’m short, I usually look like I’m distracted (I usually am), and I’m always vocal and always eccentric, they learned to live with it. I get the job done, get it done well, and it’s hard to find people who are good at what I do. They’re satisfied, and I’m happy most of the time.
I learned the hard way that wearing a mask for a girl is never worth it. And these days, when a lot of us change jobs faster than we change girlfriends and boyfriends, it’s definitely not worth wearing a mask for a job. If they can’t deal with you the way you are, they’re certainly not going to like you any more when you’re fake. Fakers are less likable and far less respectable. I guess I figure that if they want you to be someone else, you’re better off letting them deal with someone else.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.