Thursday, June 11, 2009

6-11-09: Two Years

Today marks the second anniversary of the beginning of my professional career. I was just reading the post I made a year ago, and am surprised to see how accurate it was.

In the past year, I've gotten a lot more responsibility, and am enjoying my professional life significantly more. Things have changed. Some of my good friends have either left the company, or moved back to our main plant (I work in an off-site building across town). I still see them, just not nearly as often. Fortunately, one of them is moving back soon, which should be nice.

I still see some ageism, since I am STILL the youngest guy in my group. It's not nearly as obvious, though. I'm treated much more like a peer now, which is really nice. I'm a lot busier, which makes the work day go by faster. I still constantly work on my interpersonal communication skills, but they have improved.

The only really new observation since last year is that big companies move slowly. Really slowly. I like to see results fast, and quite often it just doesn't happen anywhere near to speedily. I've learned to be more patient, but it can be immensely frustrating. I've been trying to get a new computer workstation since early February. It's been deathly slow.

The recession has hit my company, which has meant a delay in raises and promotions, and a few furlough days. It hasn't been too bad, though. We're doing better than most. I don't know if we're actually getting our scheduled raises and promotions at the end of the month. I hope we do, but you never know. Still, I'm maintaining a positive outlook, and am having fun. I'm, once again, looking forward to another year.

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