Hindsight is perfect sight

The thing about blogs-- it's very public. I've no idea who gets to read it and when. But I am willing to hazard the guess that my blog has been un-viewed for at least one month already... given that my last post was made in early March and those loyal friends who have, from time to time, returned to see if I've put up anything new have, by now, become frustrated to find their loyalty unrewarded. So my guess is... this entry will sit un-viewed for at least a month more.

Anyways-- hindsight is perfect sight. This is a painful lesson that we are forced to learn repeatedly because the mistakes we make are never (never, at least for the average human being with the expected intelligence) the same. Or the mistakes touch a different facet of our being each time, so that we do not know for sure if we have committed the same one before.

But I guess for me-- a once fresh graduate "thrown" into the corporate world-- the adage takes on a completey new... and sharp... form.

I don't even know where to start-- with my "what ifs" or "should not haves", with the fears and cares borne out of them? Okay then: what if I had not been afraid; what if I had spoken up and expressly told HR, right from the beginning, the departments that I particularly wanted to join? Maybe I wouldn't have been given an interview for a position in the branch in the first place. Would it have hurt to say something? What was there to lose-- my face? I wouldn't have lost the offer to join the bank. They didn't offer my anything. I passed their tests. I gave up half a day's work for them.

So, yes. I feel a degree of bitterness. I've always felt it, even five months before I signed that contract. I felt bitter because I was made to wait six months until I formally joined the company, while my old classmates only had to wait two weeks to, at most, a month. I feel bitter because the kind of work I did while I was in limbo seemed to have no value to the employer. No, to them I was just the same as everyone else-- a fresh grad. Some fresh grad I was-- one with practically a year's worth of real, serious work experience. And when I finally did sign that contract, I was given the same kind of offer that my old classmates were given, yes, the same ones who had no work before they started. Moreover, it occurs to me that I was offered a position out of pity. I was given an offer because I told my interviewer that I had been through five interviews already, waited six months already. Because I was giving my contact at HR a headache, calling every so often for six months to ask what was going to happen to me.

And despite all that, I accepted it because I was just relieved to have reached an end to the battle.

But in hindsight-- in perfect sight-- maybe I should not have started out in a position that I did not like. I am afraid now that I will be stuck here for longer than I intended. I am afraid that I am not going to get the experience I want to get before I go back to school for an MBA.

I applied for another position in the bank--one that I think I would have asked for if I had just done so-- and it seemed to give the impression that I had no intention to stay where I was. For whatever reason, my move generated a hush hush reaction among my superiors about the propriety of what I had done and the acceptability of it to HR and to the department who would be receiving my application. Although there is no policy prohibiting probationary (that part was what caused the reaction) employees from applying for internal vacancies, there is general sentiment and expectation that one is to stay put for about two years.

Thing is, I can't wait two years, which is why I started asking myself whether or not I should have accepted the position and whether it would have hurt in the first place to say what I wanted. I can't wait two years because by then, it would be time to go back to school, and what would I take with me to b-school-- knowing how to count cash and cheqeubooks and PIN advices? how to remember bank-specific guidelines for saying whether or not a transaction is to go through? What happens to the stuff I learned and will learn in school? What happens to my creative and analytical capabilities-- those that require me to rack my brain when I write reports? those that challenge me to see things differently so I can find a way to get to the right answer? And what happened to my one year doing and learning all of that when I drafted reports, built spreadsheet models and sat-in three-hour meetings discussing all of that?

Main point is, my application was not meant to hurt the operations of the branch (though I doubt that my non-presence will make a significant dent because I am not permanently assigned to one place). I applied because I feel I can bring value to the position and the position will, in turn, bring value to me. I don't need to be lectured about not expecting to find "the perfect job" and about building a bad reputation for being so fickle as to change positions every so often. No, my application was an earnest expression of my personal goals and my sense of self-worth. That's all it really was.