Growing up and the working world

It's been 9 months since I started my first professional work experience. Below are some thoughts and experiences about work, working, and co-workers:

• Coworkers 10 years older than me are strangely at the same place in life as me. I realize the question "What next?" is life-long, not just specific to my age group and life stage.



• I notice how a lot of co-workers have side projects/jobs/passions. I think this is really great. It's a good example to me of how to stay active, keep one's mind going, and not become complacent or stagnant. One is opening a chain restaraunt, one teaches on the weekend and has a real estate license, another has an event planning business, and another is really invovled in Toastmasters.



• Recently a coworker asked me how I was doing, I told her "blah," and she told me "Welcome to becoming an adult." She said the same thing to me when I was having foot spasms. "Growing up is one of the least fun things you can do," she has said on another occasion.



• When I entered this year I really was interested in seeing how the "intentional community" would play out at home. But I really have noticed that my work place is just as much of a community as my homelife is. The shared space, the drama, the teasing, the conversations focusing on vocation, the arguments about whose dirty cubicle is attracting the cockroaches...



• I'm amazed at how much respect I get just from my affiliation with my organization's name. Just the name CHC gives credibility to whatever I say. I've never expereinced this before.



• I'm amazed how much people get paid for the work they do. It seems going to school is more work than a job is and you had to pay others an arm and a leg to do it. Now it seems you get back so much for doing less work. Maybe this sounds silly, but it's what my young eyes perceive...



• When I was a teenager I used to think adults were so very magically different. But judging from the drama, the personality clashes, and the ways of dealing with conflict that I see around me the past few months-- they are exactly the SAME! Even in the working world, it seems things still boil down to silly things like popularity...
• There is a certain politics around e-mails. Who is and is not included on certain e-mails. Who is in the "To:," the "CC:," and the "BCC." When to put everyone in the "BCC" (so that no one knows anyone else's contact info." Whether to push "reply" or "reply all." What business to take care of through e-mail, phone, or in-person (do I really need to type any letter to the person who sits in the cubicle next to me?" Etc., etc., etc.,