Good thing you have impostor syndrome

This week I was looking something up about a big local-government organization here in my town. When I got to their website, I realized it was completely new.

Of course, I did what any web developer does and started quickly auditing things to see how well it was built.

Come to find out the site has been up since around Christmas and was built by the “big” local agency.

The fact that it took nearly 20 seconds to load, is an accessibility nightmare, and lacked even the most basic meta information is one thing — seeing that the entire site was still set to “no-index” is what really blew my mind.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve never forgot to uncheck that box myself — I think we’ve all been there — but knowing what this company charges for their work and the size and importance of this organization for the community, it seems like a pretty major oversight 4+ months post-launch.

The funny thing is, back in 2020, I was asked to bid on this project and I turned it down.

I thought being a “solo” agency, I didn’t have the staff and resources to take it on. I was afraid that I’d be out of my depths with the complexity. I wasn’t sure I had been doing this long enough to take on a project of this size, scope, and importance.

Impostor syndrome is a funny thing… Particularly how actual impostors don’t seem to suffer from it ????

If you’re feeling like a fraud, chances are you’re actually doing a pretty good job — it means you hold yourself to a higher standard, and that you actually care.

That’s something worth remembering the next time you have a flare-up.