Today I had a timely personal reminder about how disempowering a skills gap can be. I freely admit that, although (by some miracle - it was a good day!) I have a GCSE maths equivalent, I really struggle with numbers. Anyway, I was asked to quote some costs for a course and so I sat down and spelled out, step-by-step (or so I thought!!), how the thing would total up to... well, I made it in the region of several thousand pounds (!). 'Wow, our prices are still a bit steep', I thought, but when I went back over it all, it seemed that it must be correct.
Anyway, today I was putting together some more costings for someone, and I must have a clearer head or something, as I saw it all quite differently and totalled it up to a few hundred. Now, this course was only half the hours of the other one, and alarm bells began to ring. I have just had to send what I can only describe as a grovelling apology to the person who received my original quote. Fortunately, he is a kindly human being who, although he will no doubt rib me mercilessly for this, will forgive me my fallability.
My point here is this: all my life I've felt stressed when faced with numbers and maths. I know that I'm deficient in this area, and I've avoided facing up to it. However, after this 'blip' I've decided to talk to my manager about doing a course to improve my skills. I know I'm not gonna find this easy. I have a lot of bad memories associated with maths (it didn't help that I used to burn my maths books periodically, and I wasn't at school very much in the first place). You can't hide away forever though - it's time to face my gremlins!
