Life – a user's manual Part II - Boksidan

Challenges
When I’we been newly employed at a workplace, it has obviously been a lot that has been new. In particular,
the first work where it even was new for me to work. Which meant that there were a lot of things that I could
not, but any other new recruit could. For example, to understand how I should approach my colleagues and
managers, or to understand how the pauses worked.
Although I later learned that such things to some extent differ between various sites, it became in time much
easier to embrace the daily routines. It meant that I quickly came to the point where my colleagues were
mentally. That is to fully grapple with to master the professional challenges involved in the particular the
job. These challenges may have been to find the way through town and drive a lorry (truck driver), operate
the controls on some control panels (bridge operator), formulate instructions (technical writer) and so on.
Before I reached the point that I found myself on the same level as my colleagues, I think it felt as if
everyone else was much smarter than me. Their comments were smarter, they made a fool of themselves less
often and so on. But once I been there, I have often found that I am actually not more stupid than others. In
addition I have often, over time, realized that some colleagues that at the first meeting sounded very clever,
really are quite parochial or nagging.
It has been a very big difference between jobs in how long it took until I felt that I mastered 3 the most
common challenges. In some places, it has only taken a few days while in others, it has taken several years.
When I then think back on how it was originally it has, in several works (those where I produced
something), struck me how my production has increased over time, even though I strained myself less and
less. Unfortunately, it is often the case that once I mastered the challenges, I have also lost the feeling of
personal development in the work.
When the tasks no longer given me a feeling of personal development, I have sometimes got uninterested in
the job and then just done it for the money. If I’we not had nice colleagues, or the work was exciting, or if I
was able to develop personally in any other way.
3.
With mastering tasks I mean that I no longer feel any uncertainty about how to do it. It does not mean that I not had
to think. But if I had to think I have been clear on what considerations I need to do and why, and I have had the
skills needed to do so. Even when I felt that I mastered the work, it has obviously still happened that I’we done
misstakes. The difference is that the uncertainty in how to think/do and the uncertainty of whether the results will
be correct or not have disappeared. The sense of uncertainty, which creates excitement in life, is gone.
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