Yes, you will become one of them.

Thanks, everyone. I got some feedback on a side project with a talented friend I admire, and it was "ok, this has potential, fix this." Glad to have the opportunity to grow a little there, and it was a reminder that it's not good for me to be the one always fixing stuff. No one pushes me to grow in my day job and I'm always on clean-up duty for people who overestimate their skills due to limited exposure to cultures in other companies. I'm seeing it as a paycheck. I can get better and do interesting stuff on the side before I'm ready to move on, but my recovery from a serious injury will take another 2-3 years. Can I still catch up afterward? Do not want to become the people who underwhelm me, and I'm scared it's too late. Will determination and an honest assessment of my weak points be enough for recovering the lost time?

Anonymous wrote:...do you slowly become a dud yourself? Just asking as I'm getting paranoid. In a meh job for health reasons right now and have tried to keep my skills fresh with side projects and networking outside of the office. I hope that's enough but I'm not sure.

Yes, OP, you do. I'd be very careful about this; it's very hard to overcome peer pressure like that when it's such an ingrained part of the office.

I know a number of young grads who, at university, were very ambitious, aimed high, and had big goals they were working on achieving. They all got into a similar industry and within 6 months - 1 year, all ambition, drive, and desire to do anything worthwhile was gone. As long as their job was stable, even if it paid peanuts, and they didn't have to exert much effort and had time to go drinking (which quickly became their main hobby), they were happy. It's sad to see so much lost potential.

I'm not sure how we define "duds" but I have worked with antagonistic, negative, ineffective people for the past 3+ years at my current job and I am definitely trending that direction, despite my best attempts.

I recently hired someone from my same organization who has promise but was stuck working on a team full of duds for years. Sadly he's behind professionally compared to many of his peers who started around the same time, and it's taken a lot for him to get up to speed and the expectations for my team. It was his first job out of college and he developed some bad habits working with the old group. The team had a poor reputation due to a few really bad apples and I'm disappointed for him that it stifled his growth. If he keeps working hard he can progress, but it really is a shift in mindset that's hard to change after so many years.

Yes, but you might become more sympathetic to duds.

Or you decide to go all-out in your next job.

...do you slowly become a dud yourself? Just asking as I'm getting paranoid. In a meh job for health reasons right now and have tried to keep my skills fresh with side projects and networking outside of the office. I hope that's enough but I'm not sure.