Friday, September 3, 2010

Project 365: Day 34 - Changes.....


It never fails that when I decide to change in my life, I change my life. Sometimes the changes are small, but I do them big. For instance, I never just decide to change my hair color. I change my color to the other side of the color wheel and take the scissors to it. And sometimes my changes are big and can span across an entire year. One year, I started out as a single woman working her way through college. By the time the year was over, I was married, a college graduate, and bought my first house. That year was also speckled with various other things that were out of my control. My mother in law passed away two months after getting married. My uncle passed away two months later and my birth mother passed away another two months after that. (side note - the birth mother will a topic all to it's self).

This year has been full of many changes. The most obvious, of course, was physically moving in this separation. We had been mentally and emotionally separated for a very long time, but this year I physically moved my life to a new location. That was change number one. The second came when I decided to leave the firm I had worked for for almost 14 years and venture out to a new firm. Now, when I started my search for a new "job family", I kept my search within the same legal arena. I knew that after 14 years, the first major adjustment would be losing my comfort level. When you work for the same people for that long, you develop a relationship that closely compares to your own marriage. You know everyone's quirks and moods, the birthdays of all their kids, the ailments of their pets and the size of their bras. The kind of comfort level you have with your own family. You're not afraid to tell them exactly how you feel about the way-too-short dress they're wearing and you don't back down when they address your too-tight-top. It doesn't bother them a bit when you cover their showing bra strap without asking their permission. And you don't worry about them finding very personal e-mails in your inbox while they cover your desk during your vacation. Comfort level takes a very long time to accumulate.

So leaving this comfort level was not something I would easily adjust to. But I was ready for it. I needed a jump start in my career and I needed a new friend "pool." Now I certainly don't want my old work friends to think that I needed to replace them. That was not the case at all. I simply knew that by moving forward in my personal life, I needed to gain new perspectives. Maybe prospects is the word I am looking for. Either way, change needed to sweep over all aspects of my life.

So I took the leap and found a new firm that welcomed me into their unfamiliar territory. It was intimidating at first. A much larger company than I was used to working for. Literally ten times the size, maybe more. But I was ready for it. And two months later, I can report that this was probably the best career move I've ever made (besides staying in one place for 14 years -which as you know from a previous post, was not an easy thing for me to do).

So this new world, with all it's corporate-ness and faces, has opened my eyes to the fact that I have a skill-set that was not being fully utilized in my previous employment. Not to say that my previous employer didn't appreciate my work, but the demand for what I am good at was not present. It feels good to know that I am good at something and that what I'm good at is needed.

An even more important aspect of this new world is that I work with people I truly enjoy. It's almost as if my initial job hunt purposely stalled until this position came open, because I was meant to work with these people. It was the perfect fit for my puzzle piece.

So for today's post, I give you a little piece of my new world. My lovely co-workers decorated my cube for my birthday.

34 of 365: Love it!.....


Good Night All!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

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В такое не верю,люблю, наверное,не думаю ни о чем, так как катяться слезы..Забыть? Что делать? Ищу везде где только можно,зачем??? как будто был ливень и нет воды,как будто светило холодное солнце.