Quitting My First Job - Essay Example

Reflective Essay: Quitting my First Job Affiliation Introduction This paper is a reflective easy regarding the resignation from my first job. The paper is typically based on what I am capable of recalling from my experiences and what I can apply to better my future life and career. According to Wallace (2005), planning or worrying about the future is an aspect that provides little opportunity to reflect, reexamine, and learn from what has just happened. Writing in retrospect, like many people, I tend to take a lot of time worrying about the next course of action, but I have realized that it is important to sometimes have moments to critically examine my actions. My reflection faced the weakness bringing bitterness or reminder of failure. Such incident really hurt my pride. I even contemplated taking the easy route of avoiding re-examining entirely, but actions would have prevented my learning and it would lead to perpetually bad choices. Thus, regardless of the pain the critical examination engenders in me, I realize that it is it is important to reflection and evaluation of the actions. According to Fabert (2003), a reflective action is different from individuals’ routine actions especially considering that various activities happen in one’s life. Reflection is typically compelling. Given that people learn by experience and from their past mistakes, reflection enables one to base his or her actions on such experiences and mistakes by mostly utilizing the best of the experiences while avoiding the mistakes. The process of reflection involves the need to engage in constant self appraisal and development. Through the reflective process, I don’t only reflect on the principles of career choice but was also going through changes as I got the feedback of my earlier decisions. Coming from a background of engineering, this was the first time I was critically reflecting on my early career decisions and getting the feedback that was invaluable to the development of my career. In writing this critical reflection, Gibbs reflective cycle has been applied to systematically think about the different phases of my experience which will be indicated by the use of headings (Gibbs, 1988). I had struggle with the realization that some of my reflections were simply descriptions of the events that have taken place. The strength of this paper is that the reflection is based on what I can recall from memory and as a result, reflection writing provided me the opportunity to voice out my struggles and achievements. The change of career is something that I have continually wanted to improve upon. In my early career, I had a lot of apprehension and did things without proper planning. As noted in this paper, I have improved on my career planning but there are areas on which I still want to improve. I am basing my reflection on the fact that without the process of actively thinking about my experiences in my first job, and questioning myself what the experiences mean, I can hardly learn anything that could help in building a better future in both my career and personal life. This reflection process was also based on the Driscoll (2007) model that helped me look at my experience of in a more detailed manner. I started the process by providing a description of the events, then purposefully reflecting on the selected aspects my job quitting experiences, the analysis of the events covers my feelings towards the events that include the effects of what I did and failed to do. The reflection will also have a proposed cause of actions that will is based on the learning that I take from the reflection. Description In June, two years ago, I quit my promising job in a reputable corporate organization. I was aged 24 years. I was very restless to chase the bigger dreams of using my skills to bring development and ensure equity in various parts of the society. I did not know at the time that writing resignation is the very first step in a long Journey of the untraveled world. I was not prepared for many things like lack of money that led me to experience many sleepless nights. My life and career has been characterized by taking some steps that has made me to appreciate the importance from proper planning before one resigns from a job (Rideout, 2001). My resignation from my corporate job was not planned at all. It happened when I had just resumed my duties from six months sabbatical, that I had effectively used to volunteer my skills to improve the standard of living in different parts of Asia and Africa. As a result of the international assignment and exposure, my life had changed so much because I had developed new interests my career and life. My travel in different parts of world I visited provided me with a view of how life is in the some parts of the world like the Himalayan villages. The simple manner of life and beautiful scene also made me appreciate the natural environment. On the other hand, when I came back to work, I realized the routine of work remained the same that consistent of attending meeting after meeting, having the same discussions week after week and mulling over similar kind of presentations that had to be do done from one office to another. Although I really enjoyed the work and working in the organization, the international volunteering assignment made me realize how my skill could directly contribute to the improvement of livelihood of people around the world. My assignment oversees was mainly voluntarily. I had so much autonomy and fulfillment in the small things that I was doing in the local organizations I was working with. The impact of the little things I did was also very much evident. This made me realize that I could utilize my skills to make the community better; my interest in life had just changed. When I came back, I realized that it was very difficult to adjust to the roles that I did previously in the organization. Due to the discontent that came about due to the lack of support of the company for me to adjust, I become so negative about the companies work environments. I had to take a leap of faith and move to something that I considered more interesting, especially an activity that would help shape my career and financially more promising that my previous job. Feelings In my reflection process, I was initially tempted to just write a description of what had happened without being really able to explain why I did or failed to do something. It was also difficult to praise my achievements for fear of sounding boastful. Nevertheless, I had to reconsider all that and came to notice that I was happy with my living and learning experiences. Initially I enjoyed the freedom that was brought about by the work, I had my savings from the work that provided me with about a year of fund that I could fall back to, and I was not really prepared to experiment with so many options. I concentrated in providing skilled services to the small community organizations that did not have the fund to hire professionals. But I also found myself insecure about my future and how I would survive if the savings got finished. This was because the allowance that I was provided with was so little and could not meet all my needs. I ended up resorting to my savings and it was only after the fund started running out that I decided to look for final solutions for my finances. I even remember doing freelance assignments and working from home so as to have enough money. From my experiences, I learned that if one was planning to quit employment, it would be wise to have enough savings to meet all his or her needs thereafter (Boud, Keogh & Walker, 1996). However, it is crucial that one develop a plan of saving as much as possible within a given time frame. From my experience, spending decisions are also decided inconsideration of how long it could take to have a new source of employment. I realized that it was a difficult moment especially having missed all these requirements despite that I had to survive before acquiring a new job. Evaluation of my actions It is important that one thinks and acts very objectively when deciding to leave employment. After completing school, it was never my intention to work with the company that hired me. I ended up in this very promising job since I graduated at the time when the companies had stopped their recruitment (Brookfield, 1995). I also failed to go through the interviews in some of the organizations that would have allowed me to work in the information technology development, which as one of my dreams. So when I was told I was hired as an engineer in my company, I initially saw it as a failure, but in retrospect, it led to the new career chapter in my life (Wong, 1995). I learned to develop systems that contributed in a small way to efficiency in the organization. The new job actually provided the space to experiment with new ideas and make mistakes leading to increasing my creativity in the corporate world. I now discovered that it was the job provided me with the platform of determining what my interests were in life. I now understand that what happed as default and mistake in my work led me discover an interest in making the non profits organizations efficient and functioning. It enables me to connect my technical skills and knowledge to the actual problems in organizations and society. I realized that I had learned so much in my corporate job during my sabbatical, where I spent my time volunteering in community organizations. Analysis Driscoll (2007) model states that analysis is important in discovering the learning that occurs from the process of reflection. I hardly knew about this idea while on my first job in the company. Nevertheless, reflecting on developments in the career, my first job provided me with opportunity to develop a skill that I was not aware existed. This skill continues to influence my capabilities and it still works in favor of my resume. My regret is that I did not take advantage of my important role to network and establish relationships, which is hardly a good practice (Mezirow, 1991). In my thinking, I have discovered that working in the corporate organization is very important to career development especially if the organization provides opportunity and exposure. My short time in the corporate world resulted in improving my skills and widening my roles. An organization like the one that employed me that enables one to have personal development and establish a portfolio of being relevant to the issues that matter is a good one. Since I had such an organization in my first role, I sometimes think that I should have stayed longer and exploited the opportunities, which prevailed. This sometimes brings bitterness in me when I look back and realized that I failed to use the structures I had to enhance my skills and develop professionally (Wong, 1995). Instead, it seems that I ran from a problem rather than taking it as a stepping stone for my success. My role as an engineer, gave me opportunity to network and build relationships with the people in the same industry. I regret that I did not take full advantage of such exposures that would have enabled me to learn from other successful experts. I have noted during the time I was representing my organization in meetings with other cooperate leaders and experts I had a lot of self worth and respectful social status. But the moment I quit the organization, all the responsibility and access that my job provided to me was all gone. This is the moment I realized that I needed to have developed more relations in the organization and industry. This would have helped me to continue learning from the great people in the industry. Why did I quit my nice job? According to Driscoll (2007), the analysis of the event has to consider not only the feeling at the time of event but also some of the effects of what I did or failed to do. An effective reflection can be guided by working with a coach or by creating logs as well as writing down experiences. Working with a coach helps through questioning by the coach. In my case, I need to write down my experiences that provide the key reasons for quitting my job. I vividly remember when the time came that I decided that it was the time to go. I was so tired and had unhealthy attitude to the job hence I could not have stayed any day longer. When I confessed to my manager that I was burnt out and was no longer interested in doing the job, many of my work colleagues were surprised since in the company, there were people that have been in the same roles for almost 20 years. Thinking in retrospective, I think it was so much easier for me to resign from the promising corporate job to the nongovernmental community development work because I had little investment made on the Job (Mezirow, 1991). Quitting my job was also easy due to the fact that I was without many responsibilities. It was therefore easy for me to overcome the need of security brought by the steady career progression path in the corporate world and overcome the fear of unknown. I also had my life to experiment with and try following my passion in life. I have realized that passion in life and career requires a lot of courage. This is the reason I risk it all by leaving my promising career for the unknown. I have also realized that after sometime, it is easy to get disappointed with the things that I did not do than the ones I did. Action Plan Plans are very important when planning to quit employment or changing a career. This is because it helps in organizing life especially when I found myself with a lot of time. When I realized that I was going to quit my job, I spent quality time planning on my next course of actions even indicating the time frame for various roles. Due to my volunteering roles in Asia and Africa during my six months sabbatical, I had discovered that I was going to work with nonprofit organizations or social enterprise companies. My main motivation was in getting a job that would allow me to travel to the remote villages and contribute to lifting the standards of living. In order to support the income from the nonprofit work, I had planed that I would do freelancing and writing assignment for magazines and other travelling agencies about the different sections of the world that I would visit (Rideout, 2001). Immediately after quitting my corporate job, it seems that my plan was working for I did not only get an opportunity to work with an international organization, but I was also able to do some documentary and magazine articles for some of the international travelling agencies. But I discovered that articles writing were a scary venture that required a lot of creativity and time. It therefore dint work out as a source of income as the little blogging I did to document my adventure in the different parts could not fetch the amount I was expecting as a professional writer. It is the planning that I was doing from time to time that helped in keeping me focused in the organizations development work and improving professionalism in the charity and community development work. Quitting a job can be very scary, but it is the planning and research of the next moves that would bring about required courage to take the move (Rideout, 2001). From my experience, quitting jobs should not only be a result of the emotional and physical exhaustion with regard to the current job related activities. Instead, critical evaluation of the perceived of experienced issues within the current job should be evaluated. Essentially, things could be even more complicated in the aspired job that the existing one, implying that a stern decision should be done regarding whether it is worth quitting the job or not. According to the Driscoll 2007 model, in coming up with the proposed cause of action, it is imperative to consider the implication of quitting job for me and others, determination of what could happen in my career if I choose to stay on the job, there is need to conduct more research if am faced with similar situation in future and putting into action my learning from this reflections. In the future, I find it wise to evaluate the possibility of getting better future benefits from my current job in terms of finances and career-wise. If the risks of quitting the job are high, I would be better to maintain the job. Conclusion Quitting a corporate job for a passion can be rewarding. In my quitting of the corporate job and pursuing my passion in the community work in nonprofit organizations, I have realized that it requires more hard work than I was used in the corporate world but it is really rewarding venture. Since experience without personal reflection does not result in learning and growth, this paper is a reflection of the events that led to my quitting of employment in the corporate company. I have also established some of the lessons that I have learned in the decisions that I made (Rushton & Suter, 2012). My reflections therefore have included some of the actions that I regret doing and the ones that I look back to with pride and gladness that I had such courage References Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. (1996) in R. Edwards, A. Hanson and P. Raggatt (Eds.) Boundaries of Adult Learning, London: Routledge Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco SA: Jossey Bass Driscoll, J. (2007). Practising Clinical Supervision: A Reflective Approach for Healthcare Professionals. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall Elsevier. Fawbert, T. (2003). Teaching in post compulsory education. New York: Continuum Gibbs G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford. Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, San Francisco SA: Jossey Bass. Rideout, E. (2001). Transforming nursing education through problem-based learning. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Rushton, I., & Suter, M. (2012). Reflective Practice For Teaching In Lifelong Learning, Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Wallace, S. (2005) Teaching and supporting learning in further education. Exeter: Learning matters. Wong et al. (1995). Assessing the level of student reflection from reflective journals, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 22 Read More