How often have you contemplated switching jobs or striking out on your own but opted instead to hang on to what you’re doing – not because you love it any more but because it’s comfy and familiar and there’s too much hassle in having to readjust to a new way of life?
I’m one of those people who has moved around a fair bit jobwise, sometimes out of choice and sometimes out of circumstance. Watching a bunch of new hires walk around and gain their bearings got me thinking about how entering a new workplace is always a new learning. I’m not talking about just the nature of work itself. I’m referring to what such a change brings to oneself. Adapting to the work culture and general practices of a new workplace is in itself a new learning experience. Starting out at a new firm, regardless of whether you’re moving in straight from college or another company, is like learning a new way of life. Embracing the change in the workplace is kind of embracing life and learning new things and gaining new experiences.
I was hired fresh out of college and found everything in my new workplace strange and exciting. Besides having to master what I was hired to do, there was certain office decorum to be followed. A casual dress code but no flip-flops, get in by 9AM but a few minutes this way and that was all right and I could leave at 6 or even earlier provided all my work was done. We had an hour for lunch that we either brought from home or ordered from a nearby restaurant and coffee breaks that were signaled by a genial man distributing paper cups of steaming tea or coffee or almond milk. Everybody knew everybody and it felt like a large family.
Later on, I joined the more impersonal, burgeoning IT sector with its electronic tags to sign in and out, coffee vending machines for unlimited coffee, buffet style lunches in a cafeteria with different counters that we paid for with meal coupons, a work-from-home-but-not-too-much policy and thousands of employees so that everybody became more a number than a name. There were very few cheerful smiles; people did not greet each other in the hallways because we were mostly strangers to each other, sticking to our own little cliques.
Still later, I found myself in a smaller company with a hall monitor for a boss. Scurrying in before the clock struck 9AM as he sat in the lobby sipping a cup of coffee and noting down each person’s entry time became a way of life. Everything was clamped down upon and monitored. There was even talk of timing our restroom breaks. That was a strange way of life – almost like being back in boarding school – but everyone quickly adapted all the same.
I then moved on to working from home – as a fulltime employee and not a freelancer. Working from home saved me the hassle of daily commutes and planning what to wear to work. But this new way of life brought with it a whole new set of challenges. Self-discipline wasn’t a problem at all. I faced other problems like timing work-related calls so that the doorbell wouldn’t ring in the middle or trying to find the most soundproof room in the house to avoid the voices of passing street vendors and barking dogs interrupting a call.
Those were trivial challenges compared to trying to convince people to take my working from home seriously. Regular office goers and fuddy-duddy traditionalists didn’t think it was a real job. While regular office goers figured I could take a nap whenever I wanted, the fuddy-duddy lot thought I was free to attend social functions or chat on the telephone at any time as I “wasn’t really working”. Frustration became a way of life. I also missed the humdrum of regular office life - bantering over cups of coffee, cribbing about bosses, or brainstorming around a conference table. Getting into a regular office job was a relearning and rediscovery of sorts.
With each change, came new learning. Change is often a scary thing – just how many times have you found yourself filled with trepidation before starting a new job or a new venture? The important thing is to embrace change with a positive attitude. Accept that life is a journey of discovery and change is an important part of that journey.
Never underestimate your ability to learn and adapt. If you’re setting off on a new venture or a new job opportunity and find yourself battling self-doubt, remember that this is the starting block for new learning, to shake things up, do things differently, gain fresh experience and insight and be a different person. Because what’s life without any learning?
Picture courtesy.
