Matthew Knott

Anyone who leaves a job after 8 years and thinks they can make a clean break emotionally is either kidding themselves or they have a heart of stone.

I was the former type. I thought that leaving would be hard yes but the new job would be full of adventure and new, exciting challenges. One week on I've come down to earth with, not so much as a bang, more like a ten megaton nuclear detonation.

I've diagnosed myself with job sickness. Symptoms are:

 

• Constant moaning to loved ones about how hard the new job is
• Depression caused by an unfamiliar environment.
• Freaking out because you've gone from the top of your game to the bottom

It's been an up and down week emotionally, Mid-week I started to seriously freak-out, what had I done? I even made enquiries about the chances of going back to IBM, albeit half-hartedly. Since then my emotions have continued to shake about.

I think beyond missing my former colleagues like mad, I've gone from being a respected (Ego detected, warning warning) web developer, to being a new guy, forced into learning .net and sharepoint in a short space of time, and initially not being very good at it.

The only redeaming features I think I managed to exhibit this week was helping one of my new coleagues with some mysql questions, and helping someone else resolve an issue with CDO mail sending under Windows 2003.

I think I'm resolved to do a good job ultimately, and realise that I do need to train, and it will take some time before I get to a decent standard, I just need to think more about what I'm doing, and get some damn sleep :)

Tags: Work Leaving Job New .net mysql Problems Sick Fear Uncertainty Lonliness