When did you know?

I was talking to my brother about his first job. I wanted to tell him - it does get easier with the passage of time. Yet I know that if someone had told me such platitudes when I started working, I don't think I would have believed them either. So I shut up, but this blog post is written with him in mind.

I have been a couple of jobs in my life, and I think I am really happy with this one. It's been coming close to 5 months now, and I am still going to work and coming home with a whole range of emotions including challenged, exhausted, stressed but never feeling that it was time to quit. Sure it is not perfect, I am sometimes swamped and feeling way out of my depth, but there is a basic amount of respect and openess in the office which I find quite frankly refreshing. Might have something to do with being in a start-up. Right now I am experience this kind of bliss. I'm happy to take it one step at the time and see whether this keeps up.

Flashback to myself in another life, I knew it was not a good fit quite early in the day when one collegue in my team sent an email circular about protocol for sending mobile phone text messages (I am not kidding!). It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen, but when nobody was rolling on the floor laughing, then I knew this was not going to ultimately work out. My only regret was not to have to guts to pack up and leave earlier, but I guess I needed to go through the CV stamping exercise. Man, I must have been a miserable old cow when I was working there, and I laugh at myself now.