A Letter to My First Job
A Letter to My First Job
It’s been five years since I turned in a well worn laptop bag, a scratched badge, and a somehow against all odds still functioning computer. Walking through the breakroom for the last time, sadly observing the hurried colleagues unaware our paths would likely never cross again. During the elevator ride down, a sadness crept in at the thought I couldn’t go back up. That the familiar glass building would no longer have an open door for me. Instinctively I turned left as the doors opened to the parking lot, looking at the worn cement but picturing the faces of friends I sat next to day after day, late night after late night. We cried together, panicked together, sometimes shared all three meals seven days a week together. I drove away knowing I was driving away and ending an unusual and important season.
Most jobs require a 40 hour commitment, with the occasional late week thrown in for good measure. You’ll see the same faces everyday, but chatting will stay primarily at the water cooler and personal details unfold slowly over time. The ever-present and rarely acknowledged politeness of working boundaries keep anything or anyone from getting too intertwined.
Public accounting was the polar opposite of a normal career. From day one, you are trained in a jam packed room full of eager, nervous fellow twenty-somethings. Everyone is bright, everyone is young, everyone is biting at the chomp to make something of ourselves. The instant message system is used primarily to exchange memes and joke about your manager’s terrible taste in ties. Your team is not full of coworkers, it is your new family. You must get in at the same time, eat lunch at the same time, leave at the same time, and function on the same time. Within five days the proximity of being crammed together in the same conference center lends itself to creating a familiarity among the group generally only seen among the oldest of friends. You know each others health problems, schedules, relationship struggles, strengths, weaknesses. The intensity of the schedules and workloads puts everyone in a constant state of stress that leaves you vulnerable and unable to be anything but transparent. You watch your other friends plan dinners or exercise classes after work while you look at your watch and its 8 pm and you are no where near going home. Your conference table occasionally sadly mentions another birthday party they can’t attend, and you all begin fantasizing about what could be going on in the great big world out there. Everyone smiles at each other across the tables, all knowing the likelihood of everyone being in this same room in five years is slim, and that these late hours while hard, are investments in a future you want more than a five-o clock happy hour. Each year one by one your team changes and shrinks, as friends find their wings and start chasing different opportunities or dreams.
And as one who has finally found my turn to go somewhere new, and taste the success the hard years in the industry have bought me, I look back at the tumultuous two years with gratitude. I’m glad they broke me. That I reached limits because when I came to the end of me, I saw new things. I had no idea that kind of passion or drive was inside, and I don’t think I ever would have had I not experienced the pressure the Big Four team brings. I am ever grateful for the place I am now, and feel such hope and peace at what the future will bring. Still I want to say thank you, to the blood, sweat, and tears shed with those people, those teams. A unique season, that won’t be back, and can’t be replicated, both in a way that makes me relieved, yet sadly nostalgic. It’s ok to be sad a season is over, and shed a few tears at the end of familiar things. Those tears soften the ground, making it easier for the new season flowers to come around. It’s good where I’ve been, it’s good where I’m going, and it’s good right here, where I’m growing.