Wednesday 10 May 2017

Influential Early Years

I have never really maintained any long lasting attachment to a previous employer.

I have never left one job and spent the following weeks, months, years wishing I was back where I had left.

I have even left a job to go to another when the new role is paying less because the new role interested me and I have never changed jobs for financial gain alone.

This doesn’t mean I was not invested or emotionally committed (in a business sense) to my job, it just means there has never been any ‘leaving pains’.

I had a coffee catch up today with a colleague of the past 7 years whose last day at our mutual employer is in two days’ time.

She is a Human Resources Specialist and as such, is industry agnostic meaning her skills are fully transferable. She is bubbling with excitement about the new job and increased pay while also looking forward to a very different industry in which to practice her skills.

However, with all the excitement, she is also genuinely sad about leaving.

I asked her about this and she likened it to when she moved out of home to live away from her parents. She enjoyed a great relationship with them and as an 18 year old, viewed her Parents Mother as friends.

She explained that the 7 years since graduating have been spent working for the same employer and recognises the incredible influence these years have been on who she is as a person.

She met her husband (a teacher), bought a house and has become a Mother. She cited the amazing people she has come in to contact with who have impacted her life, not just her work.

She went on to say how grateful she is for all the good people who she has met and worked with and above all, who have shown faith in her and allowed her to grow.

In retrospect, she had become aware only when reflecting on the past 7 years of the contribution early working years have on a person are no less impactful than the quality of teachers you have during school years, lecturers at University and friends you attract to your side, and all are interlinked.

I had never considered this before but took the opportunity to look back on my first years of full time adult employment. The guidance received, and examples provided by many I worked with at the now defunct Commercial Bank of Australia (CBA) have carried with me in a most positive way for more than 30 years.

Being thrust in to the world of international payments and foreign currencies requiring regular dealings with the Senior Staff of some of our major customers was an education upon which I cannot place a value.

The young lady I met with today is exactly 30 years my junior, yet raised my awareness to the contribution our formative working years make to our later success. Our conversation had me re-value and re-visit some very happy formative years in my career I have not thought about in a long time. It was a period where the working place was one lacking in sophisticated technology but where the interactions and friendships formed were lasting.

Good luck to my soon to be former colleague, and thank you for enlightening me today.

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