New Job, Day One (Not Me)

A friend of mine began a new job today. As a person who has started a number of new jobs over the last few years, I can't help but feel the nerves of a new day, the excitement of a new challenge, the relief of a resume/interview battle won and a bank account rescued. Somehow, it is all as fresh to me as on the first day of every job I've started.
 
Part of what I am realizing today is how different this Day One is from the first days in my own job path. In much of the non-production world, starting a new job means starting something that will last for a while, that will change life not just for a few months or a television season (reality or sitcom length). In the non-production world, though job searching might be more intense, job getting is more of a long-term accomplishment.
 
So, while I may have felt some of what my friend felt today--after all, I've been there, and not that long ago--I'm not sure I can truly understand what it is to enter into a long-term work relationship. My life is full of hellos and goodbyes and new rules and different expectations. My work is full of striving for comfortable, but not too comfortable, of looking for long-term, but realizing that long-term is largely a thing of the past.
 
Mostly what I can do is encourage and congratulate and talk over coffee. I can envy the concreteness and be bewildered by the structure. And I can realize that no matter what the field, being wanted, being hired, and being employed will always feel like good things, no matter what the duration or circumstances.
 
Congratulations to my friend, and to all of us who have read job postings and networked and sent emails and made followup calls and written and rewritten resumes, and who have survived last days and first days, and persevered until we get to a place that lasts--whether for a few days, a few months, or a few years.