An acquaintance of mine, I’ll call him Fred, changed jobs a few years ago. The new job felt instantly overwhelming, and at first he struggled to get though each day. He was so busy he felt as though he couldn’t possibly get anything done on time, and was repeatedly missing deadlines. He found his new colleagues difficult to work with – those more senior were incessantly demanding, those at his level were prickly and uninclined to offer him any help, and the juniors he was trying to manage were obstreperous bordering on rude. He struggled to sleep, felt constantly tired, and frequently fell ill.
The months passed, and things improved as he became more practised at handling his workload, and got to know his colleagues better. Eventually, he was offered a new job, and came to train the person who would replace him. He tried to ease her into it, to make helpful introductions and give her guidance that hadn’t been available to him when he started. However, she still struggled to cope with the workload, even while she was in training and only taking on a quarter of what the job involved. She missed several deadlines, miscommunicated with other teams and made several mistakes. Fred’s colleagues muttered to him that they wished he wasn’t leaving, as he was such a competent member of the team.
But rather than roll his eyes at the new person, Fred thought of his own first few months in the job, and how difficult he had found it. Only then did it hit him how far he had come. His work had become easier and easier as the months went by, and he had received positive feedback from his bosses several times. But it wasn’t that the job had become easier – as the struggles of his replacement proved – it was that he had become better at it as time went on. While Fred only wished the best for his replacement and didn’t want her to suffer, the experience of training her showed him his own progress, in a very satisfying way.
We don’t always recognise our own progress, especially if it is something gradual, which is not easy to measure. Fred’s example is very extreme, and the extent to which he was overworked is not something to aspire to. But his story is a reminder that sometimes it’s worth taking a moment to take stock, and recognise just how far you have come. Thankfully, he has now moved to a much less stressful job - and the woman who replaced him in his own role has adapted to it over time, in the same way that Fred did.