How A School Canteen Auntie Reconnected Me With My Inner Child

I'd forgotten what was important and precious to me.

When I first started my job at OGS, I was a doe-eyed fresh graduate.

I was so invested in every single story I worked on. I’d cry if it didn’t meet my standards. I’d work overtime just to make sure it was exactly how I wanted it. I was putting so much of myself into my work that, after about two years, I realised it was getting unhealthy. The first time I burned out and decided to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in a while, I remember one of them saying, “She has finally stepped out of her hole after a year.”

This was me (top row, second from left) and my crew on an 18 hour long shoot aboard a cruise ship.

It hit me—I’d built my whole identity around my work, and suddenly, I was left asking myself, “So…what’s next if I leave?”