Let’s get this out of the way up front:
I’ve been working in IT for about 25 years, and I still Google things all the time.
Not in a “haha look at me being relatable” way. I mean constantly. Daily. Multiple times a day. Sometimes before I’ve even finished reading the error message because my brain already knows how this is going to go.
If that shocks you, you probably still think senior people just know stuff.
They don’t.
That thing people think happens eventually
There’s this weird idea that at some point, experience turns into permanent knowledge. Like one day you cross some invisible line and suddenly every command, port number, config option, and obscure error code just lives in your head forever.
That never happens.
What actually happens is you recognize the pro…
Let’s get this out of the way up front:
I’ve been working in IT for about 25 years, and I still Google things all the time.
Not in a “haha look at me being relatable” way. I mean constantly. Daily. Multiple times a day. Sometimes before I’ve even finished reading the error message because my brain already knows how this is going to go.
If that shocks you, you probably still think senior people just know stuff.
They don’t.
That thing people think happens eventually
There’s this weird idea that at some point, experience turns into permanent knowledge. Like one day you cross some invisible line and suddenly every command, port number, config option, and obscure error code just lives in your head forever.
That never happens.
What actually happens is you recognize the problem faster, you vaguely remember fixing something like it before, and you think, “I know this exists somewhere.” And then you open a browser.
Again.
What experience actually changes
Experience doesn’t stop you from looking things up. It just changes what you look up and how panicked you are while doing it.
Early on, you’re Googling things like “what is DNS” and “why does this not work.” Later, you’re Googling extremely specific phrases at 2am that only make sense to three other people on the planet.
Same process. Higher stakes.
Why Googling got such a bad reputation
Somehow Googling got treated like cheating.
As if you’re supposed to memorize the entire internet once you’ve been around long enough. No one expects a mechanic to remember every torque spec. No one expects a doctor to recall every interaction off the top of their head. But in tech, there’s this unspoken pressure to act like you’re supposed to.
The people who say they don’t Google anymore are either lying, forgetting things, or absolutely terrifying.
Impostor syndrome just changes its name
Impostor syndrome doesn’t really go away either. It just gets better PR.
At some point you stop saying “I have no idea what I’m doing” and start saying “huh, that’s interesting” instead. Same feeling. Just sounds more confident.
You still second-guess yourself. You still wonder if everyone else secretly knows more than you. You just have enough scars now to know you’ll probably figure it out again.
Or roll it back.
Or Google harder.
This is still how it works
After 25 years, I still copy and paste commands. I still double-check syntax I’ve typed a hundred times. I still search for things I know I’ve solved before because my brain refuses to keep them forever.
And honestly, that’s fine.
If you’re Googling things constantly, you’re not failing. You’re doing the job. That never stops. The only difference is you get better at filtering out bad answers and knowing which results are going to waste your time.
If you ever reach a point where you think you don’t need to Google anymore, that’s when I’d start to worry.
If you like this kind of writing, I keep more of it on my personal blog at michaelroberts.me.
...Yes, I googled something while writing this