New Beginnings

If you're a new reader, read this post for some background.

After being off work for August and September, I'm happy to say I found a new job. It is going to be all new for me in terms of what I'll be doing. I'm very excited to be doing something new and out of my comfort zone. In terms of my future, this job will most likely give me the experience and growth I need.

Today was my first day and I can tell you it was fabulous. The people I'm working with are great, my manager is awesome and I think this is just the place for me to be. I'm back downtown, so the commute isn't new. (insert happy dance here for my reading time to come back) The office is fairly close to my old job as well, so I don't have to learn where all the good food places are. And I'm closer to a few places that were too far before (happy dance for Thai Express). My official role is a project analyst. I'll be working in the IT department on a project making sure it's running smoothly, doing the communications and things like that. Exactly what I was looking for.

I have a new outlook, and now having lost a job once, I know some things I didn't before about myself and about how life works. The biggest lesson I learned while job searching is keeping a network. Writing down who you talked to about what and when it happened. I realized I had a bigger network than I thought and it paid off.  Self reflection and evaluation aren't things I did before, but you can bet that I'll be doing one every few months now. It was hard to start from scratch and see what skills you have and what you value. You don't tend to think about those things just because you use them every day. You take advantage of these skills and don't really take stock of what you can do.