May is the month when freshers finish college and step in to the real world. It is the start of a long exciting journey to the top of the world. I was there 5 years back. Young and arrogant. 2001 was a great time to graduate. Even though the bubble had burst, campus interviews had happened a few months back - right at the peak of the dotcom boom. So all of us young kids had 3,4 even 5 job offers each! Recruiters were almost at our feet desperate to hire an IIT-ian. They would be lurking everywhere - outside the comp. lab, near the hostels, outside lecture theatres. What a fantasyland we lived in!
Anyway, that is the not point of this post. I want to write about the "3 year itch". That strange feeling that engulfs you roughly 3 years after you graduate and start working. It happens to everybody though to varying extents (kind of like love, i guess). Maybe in some industries, it happens after 5 years or 7 years but in our business (software), it usually happens after having worked for about 3 years. So I will do service to this year's freshers and warn them of what to expect in roundabout middle of 2009!
When you are just out of college, you are full of energy. That is not only because engineering isn't especially gruelling (compared to say Medicine) and you ddin't exactly expend any energy in getting your degree. It is also because you have hopes, aspirations, dreams, desires. You are full of confidence and nothing seems impossible. That, combined with the fact that for the first time in your life you are not completely broke and actually earning something, makes a for a great honeymoon period. The "real world" doesn't exactly seem as bad as the elders made it out to be! The first year at work is also a great experience (provided you ended up working at a good place). There is a lot of learning involved. The first thing you learn is that they didn't teach you much in college! You also make new friends at work. A bunch of young kids with money in pocket and oodles of energy leads to endless partying, drinking and in general living the good life. So the first year at work passes really really fast learning, making friends and forwarding emails.
The second year at work is critical. This is when you start thinking about "growth", "promotion" and "career". Pretty soon you realize that a workplace is not a socialist ecnonomy. Everybody starts at equal footing but some grow faster than others. Two differnt things typically happen in your second year at work - either you end up on the "fast track", meaning you get promoted, everybody praises you and you start thinking of yourself as a rock star, OR you don't get promoted, get pissed off by the petty politics (real or imagined) and in general decide that work, job, and life all suck. In both cases, you start getting serious about your work - to continue on the fast track or to make sure you do get promoted in the next review cycle. By the end of second year, the endless partying doesn't seem like that much fun. Besides suddenly you are spending more than what you are earning. Then there are those car payments. Life doesn't seem all that rosy anymore!
So the third year of your work life begins without much fanfare. With just two years of work experience under your belt, you already feel like a veteran. You start realizing that constant pursuit of promotions, raises and bonus is a pretty futile exercise. That is not what life is supposed to be about. You almost stop enjoying your work and start wondering what is it you really want from your career. This is the three year itch I mentioned before. It is a period of strange restlessness.There is a great urge to change things - if only for the sake of change. You contemplate rising above the average and really working for the love of work, not for the love of money or acclaim. That might mean changing things - working differently, or changing jobs or getting another degree or simply changing your attitude. Unfortunately, at the same time, inertia starts to set in. You have become comfortable where you are. A routine has set in. You resist change. It is a struggle between the heart which wants to beat faster again and the mind which sees no logical reason to change things. I think everybody goes through this struggle at some point in their careers (or perhaps many times in their careers!). How you respond can really define how your career shapes up. The longer you let this inertia develop, the harder it becomes to change things. Eventually you will simply accept things as they are and lose your passion. But on the other hand, if you can shake off the cob webs and take initiative, you can take yourself to the next level. It is very hard because it means getting out of your comfort zone. But it is worth it.
So as I wish luck to all the freshers (including those who have just joined/will be joining Tekriti), I will like to tell them to never lose their energy and passion. You have to keep reinventing yourself. Find out what you really love to do and go for it. It is a rare blessing to be able to love your job!
