Eight years ago...

... the world was still getting over the attacks on 11-S and was learning the name of new terrorists and countries, such as Osama Bin Laden and Afganistan. There was also some kind of security madness and a lot of incidents involving planes happened those days. But the most important for me was that I joined my current job with just 23 years.

I was young in the institution (I later learned that I was the second youngest employee for more than two years). Even my Head of Department told me on my first day that "I was insultingly young". In fact, I was even younger than his children. My first days and weeks at work were for me so chaotic and hard, I was just trying to organize my time at work, to please everybody, not to show my huge shyness,... but I felt that I was failing miserably. Everything was new to me and I was afraid of it all.

Eight years after, I have changed quite a lot from the young boy who came to Statistics with just 23 years. I have not forgotten my shyness, but I have gained some valuable experience in the way work works. Nowadays, I still put too much pressure on myself (fool of me) but I have learnt some important lessons: I just do not give too much importance to managers and I usually complain to them, I have learnt to identify reliable colleagues from those who are not, I can take part in international meetings without problems (I have even given a conference in South Africa), I know the way other institutions and departments work, I have worked in an international environment (Germany) for a while,...

To sum up, looking back eight years, I hardly believe that I am the same person than joined Banco de España in a cold November morning...