Starting the Job: We’ve All Been There

Hey folks! For those of you still reading after my lost in london chaos, I’m impressed by the loyalty (or the fear of me) you possess. And for everyone whose new (either from my new Instagram(!) or my mom sharing the link on her Facebook which is more likely) welcome!

Either way, this is a new tab I’m tackling today. It’s my first entry in the states since January’s “pre-takeoff” blog, which means a few things.

1.) No more British slang (hip hip hooray, I know it was a wee bit annoying)

2.) It’s summer! Yay! Happy June everybody. Looks like Chicago’s decided to celebrate by bringing on a heat wave so lucky us😂 (I’m sure I’ll miss it in seattle…maybe)

3.) I’m back in the corporate world…full time! And until august…that’s the DIGITAL corporate world, which is the most exciting of all. I’m a professional zoomer now though so bring it on.

For security reasons, I will not be sharing the company that I work for, just that its in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry. Most of you know anyway, so no need to mention it.

So…..let’s break down the corporate world (or at least the little I’ve learned about after one summer internship and a week of onboarding - aka laptop setup).

You know, corporate America is exactly what you’d expect. If you’ve ever taken a business class in college or are a business major (or are planning to be) you’ve probably had a similar experience to me. You walked into that first business class (accounting 101 or HR 303 or worst of all, business management 211) and you encountered more finance frat boys than you’d ever seen before. And you thought to yourself- piece of cake. These people are all going to be dumb and show their true colors, and I’ll walk away the smartest person in the room. It worked for me in English classes, science classes, history classes…no reason it shouldn’t work for business classes too…right?

Then came the realization that those snobby, arrogant, smooth finance guys are actually really….good… at what they do? And that’s when it hits you that “business” is a fancy term for people skills— the best businesspeople are really just older, better groomed versions of UIUC frat boys.

There’s the golden ticket I have as a 20 year old starting in corporate America. Most people start a few years later and they can be tricked into seeing coworkers and bosses in a different way. They can be intimidated into compliance by a request to connect from a random manager. But for the most part, I’m trying to keep in mind that each of the people I’m encountering this past week once had their crowning achievement be drinking 20 cans of natural light and belching at the loudest volume post beer pong.

It’s definitely a hard thing to remember and that’s why the first week of a new job (ah, now we’re back to the theme of this entry) is often challenging and tiring and scary. It definitely was for me, doing the whole remote thing with a new boss across the country and the prospect of a move to Washington on the horizon. But through every obstacle, from remembering how to schedule meetings on Outlook to opening up good old Excel again to reminding myself how to calculate gross profit margin, I stuck through it. And I kept in mind that everyone’s just finding their way too. I definitely struck gold with my manager and company though, so at least I know that the help is there if I ever need to ask for it (and don’t worry the questions never end so we’re off to a good start).

Not a long entry but the moral is this. I may not know everything there is to know about this position, about moving across the country, or even about if this is what I want to do forever, but that’s okay. It’s okay not to know everything. I really learned that through a very subtle moment this week. I came into the office in person on Wednesday to meet with my mentor, and I ran into a problem- my wifi failed to connect and to make an important meeting, I had to set a mobile hotspot off my phone. This worked great until it proceeded to drain my phones entire battery, and then I remembered my train ticket home was on my phone. So I headed to the tech center, but sadly they had rented out their last iPhone charger. I was just about to sulk in my misery when a fellow employee in a completely different department was walking by the office, heard me asking, and immediately offered up her charger. She sat next to me and we chatted about life and the office and our plans for the long weekend. Thanks to her, my phone got its juice- but I also got the reassurance that, as she put it … “we’ve all been there”.

Putting it in business terms, we “networked”. I used my business skills and my mistake of not bringing a charger to learn something new about a different department and a different set of experiences to my own. Which was cool and exciting, and probably my favorite part of this last week.

That’s this entry’s lesson: we’ve all been there. And as exhausted as I am and as much as I looked forward to my three day weekend, I’m feeling like there is some truth to everyone going through it together. From the security guards who helped make me a permanent badge in a matter of minutes, to my coworkers who pulled me to talk randomly, to texting coworkers during the long trainings because “what’s that tool again?!?!”, I’ve been super thankful to know the first week is only the start of a journey that will teach me a whole hell of a lot.

And on that note, I’m off to look at apartments (I seriously fall asleep to doing this now!). If you enjoyed this entry (or you’re super into seattle real estate and want to help me out), message me and let me know. And if you’re a corporate America warrior and have any tips/advice requests, I’d love to hop on that train too:)

See you in the next one!

Sincerely,

Sharon