Mellowing?

When I first started work I was all ready to go, work hard and everything, and didn’t react well when UM (my boss) subtly put me down, saying I must write papers with logic, must provide him solutions and not just ask him questions, criticizing my vocab and grammar, saying how I could have done things differently… and having no colleague to empathise with me, I honestly believed every single thing he said, and started feeling very bad about myself and my lack of ability

About 1.5 years into the job, I got the hang of things, got better at stuff, started to be aware of when UM is “smoking” me, and can stand my ground when my ideas are being attacked, so much so that UM accepts my suggestions over his own (very grudgingly of course). But I went through a period of being pissed off and indignant…

Now it’s almost 3 years. It’s just interesting with my new colleague fresh from Uni, who gets quite pissed off with UM’s fickle-mindedness and nitpicking even though he (my colleague) looks like the ultimate nice guy. Now when UM goes into his unreasonable phase, I just roll my eyes, and accept it with a shrug “he’s like that one”…

Hmm… Am I mellowing with age or just getting used to how working life is like?