Change is as good as a holida

A change is as good as a holiday; at least that is how the old cliché goes. It depends on the change really. Being evicted from your house and having to live out of your car for example, that’s not such a good change. It could lead to good things eventually, but it probably wouldn’t put you in a holiday, festive frame of mind right away. Starting a new job on the other hand, that is fun, especially if it’s a job that you really wanted and worked hard for. Or if you were very unhappy in your previous job and you stumbled on this one and you consider yourself to be one of the luckiest people alive to have got it. Then change is a good thing and something to be eagerly anticipated, one might even say that it’s holiday like if one were so inclined.

There is another cliché that states that only 2 things in life are certain, you know what they are so I’m not going to mention them, but basically it’s untrue. There are loads of things in life that are certain and one of them is that you will always be nervous on your first day of work. It doesn’t matter how qualified you are, what the company is like, it doesn’t even matter if the job is in the same company and you’ve just been promoted to a different office, you will still be nervous. Usually the company doesn’t provide buckets for you to vomit into. You should take your own if you feel it’s going to be necessary. Vomiting, however, is generally frowned upon and you should do your utmost to refrain. Swallow if you must.

The first day on the job feeling is awful, it’s worse than that first day of school feeling. At least at school you’re not being paid to do something so it’s all right if you stand around and feel lost and kick the carpet for an hour. Usually the teacher sorts you out before that anyway and picks someone to be your friend, which is embarrassing but at least you have company. At work, so long as your computer is all set up, you have to sort yourself out. No one is assigned as your work buddy; and you have to figure the tea and coffee system out for yourself. There is only so much time you can spend arranging your desk before people start to look at your funny and then there is only so much time you can spend on setting up your email before they ask you if you need any help. It is usually a good idea to go with “Yes” otherwise you could be lost forever. Once task systems, methods and assignments are explained to you and you feel a little more comfortable, you can fake your way through the rest of the day and then wing it for the rest of the week while you learn.

New jobs are always interesting and fun because they always entail more than the post advertised. So you get to learn new skills. Even if they only entail exactly what the post advertised, which is rare, you can still learn new skills. This can happen when companies decide to take a chance on an inexperienced applicant or when you lie in an interview or on your CV. Do not lie, it always bites you in the backside. Learning new skills is fun though, if at times somewhat frustrating. Frustrating for the employer as well as the employee. You both want you to learn as quickly as possible and to be as productive and efficient as possible but it is inevitable that you will follow a learning process and that you will make mistakes. Hopefully the mistakes will be small and not of the disastrous - “holy cow I just lost us that multi-million dollar account” size.

Interacting with the established staff is also an interesting exercise when you start a new job. People have their dynamics and their relationships and then you come in and you don’t fit in anywhere. You do a lot of smiling and looking around and wonder when or if it would be okay to try and break into a conversation. This process is particularly painful if you are a natural introvert. You have to rely on someone in the office adopting you and that is a very risky thing to do. People seldom want to take a risk on the new person, who may or may not be a psycho serial killer in their spare time.
New jobs are thrilling prospects with interesting and challenging opportunities, not to mention the work. Life is too short to spend most of it unhappy in a depressing work situation. Get out of it, make yourself happy, bring joy to your life by enjoying your job. It is possible. Make that change.