Sharing the Work You Do 

During one my yearly review, I got one particularly interesting piece of feedback. “You need to share the work you are doing and share with the company.” This is basically a matter of letting people know about the stuff we are putting out on Simple-Talk.com. It is something that is regularly done here, but to my introverted, slightly insecure brain, it is borderline terrifying. If I am honest, I had similar feedback from my previous company as well! 

When I go to share a piece of content, I typically ask myself: “What is the worst that could happen?” Oh boy; my brain starts racing. I could have the wrong link, a word misspelled, spelled someone’s name wrong, or … Deep breath. Of course, I have done all these things a time or two, including spelling our CEO’s name wrong once in the last item I shared to my teammates. 

While my anxiety level shot through the roof just thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong, there was a tiny voice in my head that said. “Hey, you know your work isn’t terrible, and if you made a mistake or two, better your friends find the errors instead of the world.” That rational voice seems to be a lot more well, rational than the other insecure noises I am fighting in my head.  

Earlier this week I wrote an article about Redgate’s State of the Database Landscape Survey Results (which you can read right here, or just go check out the survey here, though I wouldn’t hate the click!). Gratuitously sharing that link with you here on the SQL Server Central and the Internet seems just fine for some reason, but telling my coworkers increases the ringing in my ears to a slightly higher frequency. 

I shared it and it was okay. On to the next problem. 

Take Care to Not Overdo It

My second biggest fear when I share my work with others is that I never want to feel like I am calling too much attention to myself. So, pointing out stuff that I did myself always feels awkward.  

I prefer sharing the work that others have done or at least have contributed to. Highlighting those who helped achieve a task is a lot easier than highlighting my work. Luckily, most of my work is editing and posting the work of other writers. Highlighting their work is easy, and not so much my part in the process (no matter how large or how small, and boy does that amount of work vary at times).  

Advice To Myself, and to You, but mostly Me

You do good work. I may not know you personally, but I am going to say that if you are reading this editorial and reached the end here, you care about what you do, and you do good work. Wtih as much humility as possible and avoiding anything that appears like bragging (or worse yet, humble bragging!), let the people you work with know that in whatever way is possible. Save the bragging for the people around you that enable you to achieve great things. 

 Louis Davidson (@drsql)

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