About the post: I had written the below thoughts a year back on my first day of joining my present job. The writing process ended when the HR representatives entered the room for starting the joining formalities.
—–
It was a strange feeling, but not new. I had experienced this before – the first day in a new employment. While the rest of the herd moves on with their daily work, you are sitting or standing in a corner, bewildered, with anticipations – good and bad. Even though you want to avoid, subconsciously your mind keeps preparing a table of comparison; between your old job and the new. And somehow, your old job wins many points (not all, but many) .Then you realize that you had been on an irreversible path for the past certain days.
Anticipations are like those small sandstorms, per se, harmless. But if you do not remember your path properly, you will lose your way. But if you know your way well, and are not likely to get astray, they are good fun on the way. Besides, they also give you an idea which way the wind is blowing.
Coming back to the first day blues, the most important people, or better put the most popular figures for you, are the support staff – the security, the receptionist, maintenance group, junior staff, etc who guide you and (more often, than not) misguide you.
And if it is not your first job, you will be missing a very important component of your work life – WORK. You feel that suddenly out of a scene full of action, you have landed up in a still picture frame, where nothing moves. (For me, expect for the pencil with which I am jotting down these thoughts, everything else is pause-still). The two guys sitting next to me (new joinees like me) are wondering what I am writing so much. Is it a part of joining formalities? Are you supposed to be writing/preparing for something on joining???? So, now you know what I meant by ‘anticipations’. These guys are freshly made friends, although right now I don’t even know (or remember?) their names. A new herd forming to counter/merge into the old herd.
One more thought, as I am waiting here. Human mind never learns to relax. Here I am, given an hour to relax (authorized by all possible moral values, terms of termination of the previous company and terms of employment of the new company), but I am cursing my luck that I did not carry in my bag the paperback fiction that I have been reading these days. And so, when I did not find anything to read, I started to write…
