🪜 The step that changed my (working) life.

🗃️ From textbooks to the office: a choice without passion

As I told you in my first article, I gave a very general overview of my personal story. Today I want to stop at something more concrete: my working life and that — constant — attempt at change and self-improvement.

From the very start, I did not like the degree I chose. I was always a good student; going to university, sitting exams, studying with friends… I enjoyed all of it, and I did well. I do not regret it. But once I graduated… now what?

The work my degree led to never gripped me. Maybe I approached it badly from the beginning, or I did not know how to look for or take advantage of opportunities. Maybe they simply never came my way. Or maybe I just never worked anywhere that made me want to embrace the profession, fall in love with it and grow inside that path.

🗂️ First steps at work (a long way from excitement)

My real working life started when I moved to Barcelona. While I was studying in Argentina, I never worked: there was no need. I had the support and backing of my parents, who always wanted my only responsibility to be studying, and that is how it was. Thanks to that, I have beautiful memories of that time. Even though I did not like the degree, I never felt any resentment towards university or towards that moment in my life. In fact, it was one of my happiest stages: that is where I met my best friends, who I still have despite the distance.

One of my first jobs was as an accounting and admin assistant at a multinational. Mistake number one.

First, because the Argentinian contador público qualification does not exist as such in Spain, which strips value from a degree that in Argentina does carry weight. And second, because the multinational environment was extremely bureaucratic, with an old, rigid work culture. People who had spent decades pressing the same two keys, complaining about their salary, but without lifting a finger to change their situation.

⬇️ The disenchantment grows

Then I moved to another company, slightly less multinational, but just as structured. The same culture of forced presence in the office, where it seemed that “more time in the chair” equalled more productivity. The same logic that information is power, the same cheap office gossip, the same exploitative bosses.

There was no room to grow there. You gave everything, and got not even a thank you in return.

That job wore me down. It took me to a level of distress and anxiety I had never felt before. I eventually left, with a lot of guilt and uncertainty… but also knowing it was doing me harm.

📉 A small rebirth… and another fall

Some time later I started working at a small property construction and sales company. A much more family-like environment, where I had flexible hours and a lot of responsibility. It was a working rebirth. I enjoyed it enormously, until…

A political event in Catalonia (which I do not want to give my opinion on) brought the property sector to an almost complete standstill. Uncertainty and speculation froze everything. Slowly, the company went under.

👗 Just when everything seemed to be settling…

Fortunately, I found another job quickly. This time, at a textile factory. The environment was cheerful, dynamic, with more and more responsibility for me. I felt comfortable. It looked like things were finally settling down…

But then the pandemic came. And like so many small businesses, this one ended up closing too.

👩🏼‍🍼 And then, motherhood

And right at that moment, all the conditions came together for me to become a mother. And so it was: I had three children — two girls (2019 and 2021) and a boy (2023) — and with them, my world turned upside down all over again.

I am not going to go into detail about motherhood, because it is not the focus of this post. But I can say that it was precisely that stage that pushed me to take an enormous step, one that would change my path forever…

(to be continued…)