Thursday, February 5, 2009

Ja-Ja-Jaded

Three years ago, I was 23, and working at Subway, in their advertising group. It was my first job out of college, and we had just gotten new leadership - someone who was listening to what my co workers and I had to say, empowered us to discuss what needed to be changed, and overall supported us better than we had been previously. I was easily fired up about things that plagued our team - happy to have someone listen to me offer up my naive suggestions, and want to make it all better. I was sort of idealistic and ready to take on everyone to fight for my causes.
Shift to 2009, I'm almost 27, and just listened to a 24 year old co worker plead her case on the phone to a boss/coworker, etc. She sounds like I did a few years ago - eager to make changes, and up for the fight. Sadly, with experience in corporate America - you learn that some battles aren't worth fighting. The ones you were all fired up about 3 - 4 years ago are now things that you know better than to fight against, and instead you are perfecting the art of managing expectations. It makes me a little sad to think that I might not get that fired up anymore.

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