Moving Up

Thus ends my first day of no longer working at my job of eleven years.

So far, not working there has included a lie-in and a cream tea at Rufford Park (a park I would recommend. Lovely range of trees, a fantastic building for the tea-room and a lake with yellow-eyed ducks).

Whilst munching away on our sandwiches, and agreeing that none of us really saw the point of the egg sandwiches, my mother-in-law asked me if I feel like I have left my place of employment yet. I proceeded to talk about it as though I am going back for a good twenty minutes. So...no. No, I do not really feel like I have left.

That place has been a huge part of my life since my early twenties. I didn't meet my spouse there, or make my best-friends, as other people leaving this time have done, but I have met a lot of people. Hundreds. I have interacted with and influenced a good number, been influenced by a good few and grown so used to being there that it is hard to imagine not going back.

I have also been asked, by an old friend from back home, if I am moving onwards and upwards, and I am. My job includes new challenges all of the time, but you can get settled with certain routines and a fresh challenge, fresh routines, fresh people, will be good.

The challenge will include a promotion, which is always fun, but just the fact it is new, that it is a fresh challenge, makes it worth doing.

Slight tangent, perhaps, but on the theme of challenges, the excellent Matt Willis is offering a free short story which revolves around a genuinely breathtaking challenge. You can get it on his website.

The tale is in honour of the ascent of the Eiger Nordwand, and, though my own challenge is hardly on this scale, it is not helpful to compare challenges too far. A challenge is a challenge, and the important thing is to have them and face them, rather than to stand still and do nothing.