I read this article:

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/adventures-of-a-56-year-old-intern

I had to find my way around the maze of buildings and rooms. Way-finding has never been my strength, and I feared getting lost.

It was also disorienting not having a desk or room to work from. I had to place my bags in a locker in the common area. There was no lock, which the prudent Singaporean in me found unnerving. Eventually, I developed a system of leaving my valuables in the car and carrying just essential items to the office.

I missed having my own workspace. At The Straits Times, I had a nice room to myself, with a window, at the mezzanine level. Now, I was an intern jostling for space and time on a “hot desk” computer, in a room with half a dozen youngsters and others.

...

I felt a loss in significance, as my position on the organisational social totem pole was near the bottom as an intern. Luckily, Australia is a very egalitarian society where people relate to you as you are, generally ignoring age and job title. The other day, I discussed a case with several members of the care team and realised that everyone had spoken to me and to one another as equals. I had not been made to feel like an “intern”.

I'm grateful, I think, on hindsight, to not have an office room. When I first started work in my first job, I didn't have a room to myself (or rather, I shared a small room with 6 others). When I moved on to my next job, I entered the organisation on the cusp of expansion. I caught that brief moment of time when there were actually enough rooms to go around and so I had this cavernous room to myself. Then, as more people got hired, I had to share with another person, then another person. Which was fine, actually, as I came to miss that human interaction later on after Covid.

Thereafter, I was a cubicle rat for a fairly long time, until I was senior enough to have my own room again. That lastly for a brief period of less than a year because I then moved on to another job, which gave me a downsized room, but still a room. Again, this didn't last long, as about a year later, we moved offices into a new place where the concept was "hot desking" - no rooms, all shared cubicles.

There was a time of internal resistance on my part, during the time when we had to move out of our rooms during my second job. Comparisions were drawn with similar organisations, which actually had a mixture of both types (rooms and cubicles).

But I think, what did it for me, really, was the realisation of my own insignificance, when seen in light of the great power of God. That was brought home more closely when I transited to my third job just at the point where I felt I was getting comfortable and competent in my second job. My third job was completely different and I had to start from almost zero. My colleagues many of whom were younger than me were much more skilled at that job than I was, and it didn't help that I didn't have an interest or inclination to do that job. Again, on hindsight, this was a tremendous learning experience and the knowledge and skills I picked up on that job are still relevant to me today. But it was a really humbling experience to work in an environment where everyone worked at a much higher level than me (so I was like the "intern" in the article above). It also gave me some confidence that I could transit into a new job with different skillsets in the future if I needed to.

Between my third and fourth jobs, I went to study again, and as a student, you are obviously put into a more egalitarian environment again. So, once again, no "privilege" of seniority and whatever job title you had, it didn't matter as we were all at the mercy of our teachers. I had a particular tutor who wasn't particularly nice (in the sense that he had very high standards and made us feel it if we didn't live up to them), but again, on hindsight, all these were teachable and learning moments, because that is very representative of a real life working environment - high standards, no mollycoddling, you either shape up or ship out!

In my fourth job, whilst not as junior as before, I was still "junior among the seniors". So, a lot of listening and learning.

So now, in my fifth job, I'm actually at a point where I start to have some accoutrements of power, i.e. a position of some authority that I have a lot of autonomy to wield. But the wonderful thing is that due to my past experiences, I no longer yearn (hopefully not at all, perhaps not as much) to wield them. Rather, I am trying to have this mindset that all this is really ephemeral and will be gone one day, so just hunker down and do the job as best as you can.

So a lot of uprootings, and I hope and pray that I will have a humble mentality even as I move slowly towards retirement.

Lastly, I find that after refurbishing this old HP laptop, I like having a keyboard to type on even if surfing social media or replying WhatsApp messages, because it's much faster. It's also touch screen so it can function as a passable iPad replacement for reading the papers etc. And I can also check my email and do some work on it. So I'm really enjoying this laptop even though it's old, it's sleek and looks real nice.