Not-so-imposter syndrome

     Today my boss' boss walked into my office and told me she was supposed to make some opening remarks at a conference in two hours, but wouldn't be able to attend. Since my boss wasn't around, could I do it? Well, of course the answer was yes. I scribbled down the talking points she suggested, wrote them into notes, and then biked home to change into my suit and speed off to the conference. When I started this job, an assignment like this would have made me quite nervous. While things like this don't happen every day, I can now handle this pretty easily.
     My cousin recently wrote about imposter syndrome. This is something that comes up frequently in my work, particularly for scientists from underrepresented groups. I sometimes felt like an imposter while in graduate school, but now it's rare, and I'm really grateful for that change. I have a pretty decent sense of the parts of my job that I'm good at, and I've been lucky enough to have bosses and co-workers that give positive feedback. Instead, I find myself amazed that I can do my job. In this job, I have quite a bit of authority - I make recommendations about funding, I suggest how ideas should be presented, and I can be called on to represent the organization. People in the community ask my advice. When that happens, I (not infrequently) have something useful to tell them.
     And that just keeps surprising me. It feels like it wasn't that long ago that I was paid to mop floors and clean toilets, and here I am, a physicist, giving advice that physicists listen to. I guess that's what it means to get an education and work experience, but still, isn't that a little bit amazing?