It did not hit me until after 6 pm last Tuesday that it was real, that it was final.
It was my last day at The Straits Times. I was leaving reporting and moving on. In the newsroom, life was going on as usual. The room was buzzling; e-mail messages telling us to hurry up with our stories flashed on our computer screens; fingers were flying over keyboards making clacking sounds like a dance studio conducting a mass tap- dancing exercise.
And then there was me, serving the last day of my notice, dumping years of accumulated stuff into one box, cleaning my desk, saying goodbyes.
A 30-year-old colleague had asked me earlier that afternoon if I felt sad. I didn't at the time, but, surrounded by the familiar evening newsroom frenzy, it finally hit me. Journalism, journalists and this company were all I knew since I started work after graduation. But this was all about to change.
And really, journalists are generally a great bunch: Slightly eccentric, energetic, curious, open-minded and always ready for a party. Plus there's nothing like the adrenaline rush from writing a good story and writing it fast. It's even better than ... uh ... a moonlit evening on the beach with a guy with Daniel Day Lewis's looks, Pierce Brosnan's savoir-faire and Philip Jeyaretnam's brains.
For just a moment, I wondered what I was doing moving to the corporate world. "Don't think of it as ending a chapter in your life," my friend said in an e-mailed message. "Think of it as beginning a new one."
I got some strange reactions when people knew I was leaving. First, they asked me if things were so dire that I couldn't take it any more. No, I said, it was just that I wanted to learn new things and use skills that were not being tapped at the moment.
While my younger friends generally congratulated me, many of the older ones gave me strange looks and asked if I knew what I was doing. Why, some asked, did I want to leave the safety of the newspaper where my future looked more than secure. One told me I would be unhappy on the "outside", some said that no matter what job I went to next, I would be taking a risk and there was no guarantee that I would do better, or even as well.
One of them sat me down at lunch, looked me in the eye and said: "I hope you're making the right decision."
The truth is, I don't know that I'm making the right decision, if the right decision means being absolutely certain that I'll be happier, or more financially secure, or even more fulfilled.
All I know is that if I didn't try it out now, I'd be left with a list of "what ifs" when I'm older. In my youth, I should at least have the luxury of trying new things and stretching myself -- even if I end up falling flat on my face.
So now I've become a statistic. Another one of those young employees that will be part of numbers crunched on a sheet marked "turnover". Blame the good economy, blame my youthful restlessness, blame my generation for being spoilt and having no staying power.
But why take it that way?
Apart from those who change jobs often, attracted by the lure of a few quick bucks, our moving around is not necessarily a bad thing. In my father's time, having one or two careers was common. Job security was high on the list of things to look for in a career. But now, as he nears retirement, my peers and I seem to be tuning in to a different station -- it may not be a perfect one, but it is reality nonetheless.
We're looking at cutbacks in corporations in the West as companies, to put it politely, downsize and some of us wonder if it'll eventually happen here. We're seeing companies headquartered in one country, with different departments stretching from one side of the globe to another. We've seen movies where we're told greed is good and we've seen a man, our age, in our own backyard, cause the collapse of an entire bank.
We've been told to go regional, be part of globalisation, be a step ahead of the rest or others will catch up and overtake us. We're told to learn, relearn and upgrade.
If there's one message from this era of globalisation, it is that we have to be numble to deal with change. Companies too, gain from the experience we bring in. New blood brings in fresh enthusiasm, different viewpoints and wards off stagnation.
One of my friends, Yu-ming, is in her fourth job at 28. She has worked in journalism, public relations and management training. Now, she edits a newsletter at a country club, doing everything from conceptualising to budgeting to planning. She used to be the least computer-inclined person I knew, but now she's working on putting the club on the Internet.
"I've learnt to be more flexible, since each job requires different things," she said. "I've also learnt to roll with the punches and grasp situations quicker. When change comes, I'm not as scared of it as I used to be."
I also have a friend whose father, in his 60s, has worked six or seven jobs, from being a scientific officer, to consultant, to running his own company. "You have to keep learning," he told my friend. "You have to focus on your interests, look at your comparative advantages and the opportunity costs of leaving something. Make sure you keep up a certain depth to your knowledge and don't dissipate your energy on frivolous things."
In the end, that's what life is about, isn't it? Learning. And if we're going to spend a good part of your life working, we might as well make sure that learning curve keeps climbing and that we're acquiring a breath and depth of knowledge.
It's not as if I'm looking for some perfect, Utopian job. Every employer, like every employee, is going to have its rough edges. What matters is what I can get from it and what I can give back. That's not to say I've been getting nothing from reporting -- far from it. But maybe it's just time to leave the safety of the nest.
Am I sad? A little. I'm also scared, anxious, happy and excited at moving to a new world.
American singer Joan Baez once said: "You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only choose how you're going to live. Now."
Well, no one ever accomplished anything by sitting around and waiting for things to happen. And I think young people here are understanding that now more than ever.
This is the last column in the series.