This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Bradly Ball (blog | twitter) and the topic is second chances. The idea is to pick one of those moments in our career we wish we could do once again. A second chance to make it all better, or at least to make us sleep a little better at night. So here goes…

Almost 6 years ago I left the university with a fresh degree in my pocket but of course with no actual knowledge of how the world turns. I immediately started – well, after a few weeks of travelling – at my first job: I was an IT consultant! At the time I had almost no technical skills (some argue this is still the case, but I digress and at first I didn’t really felt the desire to get dirty with the technical side. So I spent some time at the business side of IT. My first project I got was at a government firm and we all know how that can be. The problem was: most of the time I didn’t have enough work to keep myself 100% occupied. Being my first real job ever, I didn’t really know how to handle the situation. Sure, it might seem “cool” to surf the net on the job, but trust me, it gets boring real fast. Needless to say, I wasted quite some time at that job not really employing myself or honing my skills and that time will never come back. It didn’t really cheer me up at the time.

So here’s my wish for that second chance: maybe I would like to do that time again, but with the knowledge I have today. I could be more proactive: talk to my manager about the lack of work; how I could spent my time on side-projects or trying new stuff out. I could try to get more technical as I do now with SQL Server, I could write a blog or articles like I do now, I could do so much more in order to improve myself. I know now for sure that if I ever get into a similar situation, I could be way more productive. But that time is never coming back. Am I sad about it? No. That experience was part of my learning curve. Part of my growth process and it made me what I am today and what I will become in the future. You can only appreciate the heights you achieve, if you know the depths you can go through…