Helpful things I learned at my first full time job

Starting my first full time job brought on a slew of challenges I had no way of preparing for. But as you all know, every challenge is an opportunity for learning and growth. I treated these challenges no differently. At first, I wanted to avoid this topic all together, but I figured I’ll share my experiences, in hopes that it will help a fellow newbie. Anyhoo, on with it.

For those of you who don’t know, I view life through a spiritual lens (or at least I try to ). So, if someone/something is testing my patience , I look at it at a deeper level. Instead of instinctively reacting on emotions, I look at what the spirit is teaching me.

The first problem I ran into was inadequate supervision. I struggled with finding a balance between asking for help and figuring things out for myself (as the independent being I usually am). I quickly learned that pretending to have things under control is not beneficial. I learned that the best option was to advocate for myself and ask for the tools I needed. If your direct supervisor is not giving you the tools you need, take matters into your own hands and find it elsewhere. Ask people who do similar tasks as you, or other individuals who can share some insight. This will usually lead to forming professional relationships and expanding your team. Also, it relieves you of the issue of poor performance due to ignorance. Don’t be afraid to bring it up as well. In my case, bringing it to attention of other supervisors covered my behind. It also created accountability on my part, because before taking this step, I had to make sure I was doing my part. Addressing issues early on saves you the trouble of watching them grow into uncontrollable monstrosities.

The second issue was time management. Because my role was somewhat unique, and involved various team members, it was a challenge to know where my priorities were. Because of this, I sometimes invested my time on the wrong tasks and missed targets. To remedy this, I planned my work ahead of time. I used a planner to track the tasks that needed t be done, based on how long they would take and the importance of each task. Establishing a sense of direction for my days saved me a lot of time. I found it helpful to plan on the previous day, with the last 15-20 minutes of my shift, and highlighting things that were time sensitive. At the end of each day I would assess my progress, and plan accordingly.

As I mentioned before, my role was diverse, so it took some creativity for getting things done. Setting boundaries played a huge role here. After identifying my priorities, I then refused/shifted tasks that were not aligned with my priorities. This was a challenge at first, because as a new employee, declining requests didn’t sit well with me. But, all in all its better to do things well than to accept 100 tasks and only complete 50 of them. In doing this, you set healthy limits to what you are willing to do and minimize the risk of burn out. Many people would clock out and stay late to get work done, but not I. I needed to be real with myself and acknowledge that if I maximized my eight hours, whatever was left, had nothing to do with me (til I clocked back in the next day). I refused to get sucked into a culture of getting sick from stress and not being able to serve the clients I worked with. Setting boundaries helped me show up as my best self, on a daily basis.

In summary:

Keep yo receipts: document everything. Always have an email sent, cc the entire office (jk don’t do that but, definitely your supervisor and the supervisor of the person you are communicating with. This is a really great way of creating accountability and essentially covering your behind.

Own yo mistakes: be patient with yourself and foster learning. Recognize your shortcomings and address them. If there is room for improvement, then improve. Sometimes, this might mean recruiting the help someone on your team.

Address issues ASAP : Get in front of the problem by reporting any issues as they come up. Think you're gonna miss a deadline? Say so, and explain why. Failure to do this might bite you in the butt (unless y’all are into that kinda thing).

That's it for now. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

As always:

Peace and Blessings,

Shaday