Hitting 20 years at the same job made me flip my thinking

I hit my 20 year anniversary at the same warehouse last month, and I always figured that meant I was stuck, you know? Like I had missed some window to try something new. But then my supervisor asked me to train the new shift lead, and watching her struggle with the same inventory problem I solved back in 2008, I realized my experience was actually worth something. All those little fixes I did without thinking, they added up to real knowledge that nobody else has here. That number, 20 years, it stopped being a cage and started being proof I could handle anything thrown at me. Now I'm actually considering a lateral move to a different department, just to see if I can learn something fresh. Has anyone else had a milestone like that flip how you saw your own career?

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anderson.gavin1mo ago

Funny, I had almost the opposite reaction when I hit a similar milestone. I looked back at all those little fixes I'd made and realized I'd been doing the same dance for years, just with different music. The knowledge felt less like proof and more like a warning that I'd stopped growing. I actually started to see my "experience" as a trap, because it made me too comfy to question if I was still learning anything at all.