Is there an entry level to hell?
March 21, 2012 10:33 AM Subscribe
I got the job. Hooray! Now it's stressing me out. Advice and perspective greatly appreciated.
I've finally landed a secure, entry level job with benefits after college. Yaaay! Except it has brought me nothing but misery so far. I'm so stressed out, I can hardly take my paycheck and go out to enjoy it.
At work the stress level is partly due to sense people at work keep giving me that this job has a high turnover, and I'm not sure how much to invest in it. There is very little feedback on the work I get. My sense of job security fluctuates wildly every day, and is mostly tied to my boss.
My question is in part how to behave as a professional-- should I be friendly or ignore people who chat around me when I'm working? Is it ok to decline invitations for beers outside work? I've had some bad short-term gigs after college, some of which were verbally abusive workplaces, one of which ended in physical abuse. So, I am skittish here, trying to maintain a sense of professional camaraderie with my colleagues, even a few who have abrasive personalities and remind me of bad people from past workplaces. Assuming I don't want to be part of the gossip mill at work, how long after I settle in here can I expect to really relax and be "myself"- or will that ever happen?
Does this come with the terrain in entry level jobs? Will these issues ever settle down? I've dealt with colleagues of every stripe before, and am generally resilient, although this kind of thing affects me a lot. But honestly, this entry level job is so disappointing, I can't imagine doing this for a year, let alone the long term.
I can't seem to get this anxiety under control, and I'm afraid my boyfriend is getting hugely turned off by it, and that it will impact his happiness too. He has been so sweet, but I don't want my work life to kill my relationship.
Should I try to switch jobs? I'm throwing this question out there in part because I want to remember I should be more grateful to have a job in these times, but also because I need some hope that it gets better.
I've finally landed a secure, entry level job with benefits after college. Yaaay! Except it has brought me nothing but misery so far. I'm so stressed out, I can hardly take my paycheck and go out to enjoy it.
At work the stress level is partly due to sense people at work keep giving me that this job has a high turnover, and I'm not sure how much to invest in it. There is very little feedback on the work I get. My sense of job security fluctuates wildly every day, and is mostly tied to my boss.
My question is in part how to behave as a professional-- should I be friendly or ignore people who chat around me when I'm working? Is it ok to decline invitations for beers outside work? I've had some bad short-term gigs after college, some of which were verbally abusive workplaces, one of which ended in physical abuse. So, I am skittish here, trying to maintain a sense of professional camaraderie with my colleagues, even a few who have abrasive personalities and remind me of bad people from past workplaces. Assuming I don't want to be part of the gossip mill at work, how long after I settle in here can I expect to really relax and be "myself"- or will that ever happen?
Does this come with the terrain in entry level jobs? Will these issues ever settle down? I've dealt with colleagues of every stripe before, and am generally resilient, although this kind of thing affects me a lot. But honestly, this entry level job is so disappointing, I can't imagine doing this for a year, let alone the long term.
I can't seem to get this anxiety under control, and I'm afraid my boyfriend is getting hugely turned off by it, and that it will impact his happiness too. He has been so sweet, but I don't want my work life to kill my relationship.
Should I try to switch jobs? I'm throwing this question out there in part because I want to remember I should be more grateful to have a job in these times, but also because I need some hope that it gets better.
The (rather) tiny investments of time needed to go out for beers with coworkers will pay off in your daily interpersonal relations very quickly.
posted by MangyCarface at 10:53 AM on March 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by MangyCarface at 10:53 AM on March 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Would need more info on the issues tied to your boss you allude to, but a lot of entry level jobs see a good deal of turnover, even in good companies. Mainly because it is entry level, and people are getting their base of experience, and suddenly are worth more to comapnis that wouldn't have looked at them before.
As an entry level job, the people in those positions are typically younger, less mature/professional, so that's just the way it is sometimes. Going out for beers is a good idea - everyone gets to commisserate and bitch and bond that way. Just don't get sucked into being someone who complains. Listen, nod your head, so little about the job and more about other stuff - hobbies, etc.
Remembering back to my first job, we were all 20-somethings that felt oppressed and all our bosses were stupid, and we'd go out after work a few times a week. We've all grown and advanced in our careers, but we still stay in touch and run into eachother all the time, even though we're at different companies now. I was probably the first to leave, and some stayed and became upper management, many others left after I did.
My advice then, and my advice now to people who work for me and who I work with is; focus on the things you can control. those you can't, no use in fretting over it. If there are little ways to influence those things to make them more tolerable, great, but focusing on things you can control directly, however little that may be, can improve your outlook and enjoyment.
posted by rich at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2012
As an entry level job, the people in those positions are typically younger, less mature/professional, so that's just the way it is sometimes. Going out for beers is a good idea - everyone gets to commisserate and bitch and bond that way. Just don't get sucked into being someone who complains. Listen, nod your head, so little about the job and more about other stuff - hobbies, etc.
Remembering back to my first job, we were all 20-somethings that felt oppressed and all our bosses were stupid, and we'd go out after work a few times a week. We've all grown and advanced in our careers, but we still stay in touch and run into eachother all the time, even though we're at different companies now. I was probably the first to leave, and some stayed and became upper management, many others left after I did.
My advice then, and my advice now to people who work for me and who I work with is; focus on the things you can control. those you can't, no use in fretting over it. If there are little ways to influence those things to make them more tolerable, great, but focusing on things you can control directly, however little that may be, can improve your outlook and enjoyment.
posted by rich at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2012
If you're not getting consistent (or any) feedback, and you're worried that you'll be just another person who exits this job quickly, why not create a big project for yourself, one that will require consistent feedback on things other than your regular job duties (which your boss may not consider worth the time or effort to review)?
That way, you're proactive, you can determine the feedback schedule (since there hasn't been someone doing this project before, since you made it up), you develop a different relationship than your predecessors with your boss, and you have an excuse to say, "I'm knee-deep in Special Project, folks, could you chat somewhere a little beyond my cube? Thanks!"
posted by xingcat at 11:09 AM on March 21, 2012
That way, you're proactive, you can determine the feedback schedule (since there hasn't been someone doing this project before, since you made it up), you develop a different relationship than your predecessors with your boss, and you have an excuse to say, "I'm knee-deep in Special Project, folks, could you chat somewhere a little beyond my cube? Thanks!"
posted by xingcat at 11:09 AM on March 21, 2012
First of all, you should keep in mind that entry level jobs are just that. They are positions that offer you a chance to prove yourself capable so you can get more responsibility and more challenging work. Some people don't get this and quit after six months because they think the job is beneath them, but remember that you are just trying to prove to your employer that you can handle responsibility. So don't worry about the "high turnover" comment. Just make sure you stick around for at least a year to put a notch on your resume – the experience will make finding your next job much easier.
Also, try to check your own worries about your competence. This is your first "real" job and you're still learning the ropes. Your employer knows this and will probably give you some leeway. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and try to find the helpful people in your workplace that will throw you a lifeline when you need it.
As for socializing, I think it depends on the industry and your own personality. I choose not to fraternize with coworkers outside of work because I prefer a hard line between work and my real life. I like my coworkers fine and we get along pretty well, but I don't want to be friends with them. We have an amiable professional relationship, and that's all I want.
It'll probably take you a little while to feel out what a professional relationship is like, and then you can decide if you want to just be good work buddies with your colleagues or if you have enough in common outside of work that you can strike up a real friendship. Now, spending a little effort to foster friendly relations with the people you work with is probably a good idea. But don't feel like you have to hang out after work. If you would rather go home and watch TV, do that. It's your life, man.
Also, sometimes people take out their dissatisfaction with their personal lives through their job. If you're bored or anxious at home, you may be bringing those feelings to the workplace. Try to figure out what the root cause of your angst is and deal with it there.
posted by deathpanels at 11:28 AM on March 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Also, try to check your own worries about your competence. This is your first "real" job and you're still learning the ropes. Your employer knows this and will probably give you some leeway. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and try to find the helpful people in your workplace that will throw you a lifeline when you need it.
As for socializing, I think it depends on the industry and your own personality. I choose not to fraternize with coworkers outside of work because I prefer a hard line between work and my real life. I like my coworkers fine and we get along pretty well, but I don't want to be friends with them. We have an amiable professional relationship, and that's all I want.
It'll probably take you a little while to feel out what a professional relationship is like, and then you can decide if you want to just be good work buddies with your colleagues or if you have enough in common outside of work that you can strike up a real friendship. Now, spending a little effort to foster friendly relations with the people you work with is probably a good idea. But don't feel like you have to hang out after work. If you would rather go home and watch TV, do that. It's your life, man.
Also, sometimes people take out their dissatisfaction with their personal lives through their job. If you're bored or anxious at home, you may be bringing those feelings to the workplace. Try to figure out what the root cause of your angst is and deal with it there.
posted by deathpanels at 11:28 AM on March 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
why not create a big project for yourself
This might not go over well when someone is entry-level.
In general answer to this AskMe, I would think if a worker wants feedback, the best way is to approach the boss in a calm and professional way and ask if you can meet with her or him to review your performance so far. Many or most positions have an automatic 6-month review; if yours doesn't that would be a good time to bring this sort of thing up.
As far as ambient office chatter, after many many years in cubicle jobs I have found it's better to have noise-cancelling headphones than come off as the control-freak grouch who is constantly shushing others.
Outside socializing: well, you have to strike a balance. Join a smattering of events to avoid seeming like a hermit, but don't get sucked into some kind of regular scene if you're not enjoying it.
posted by aught at 12:17 PM on March 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
This might not go over well when someone is entry-level.
In general answer to this AskMe, I would think if a worker wants feedback, the best way is to approach the boss in a calm and professional way and ask if you can meet with her or him to review your performance so far. Many or most positions have an automatic 6-month review; if yours doesn't that would be a good time to bring this sort of thing up.
As far as ambient office chatter, after many many years in cubicle jobs I have found it's better to have noise-cancelling headphones than come off as the control-freak grouch who is constantly shushing others.
Outside socializing: well, you have to strike a balance. Join a smattering of events to avoid seeming like a hermit, but don't get sucked into some kind of regular scene if you're not enjoying it.
posted by aught at 12:17 PM on March 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
I feel like I've written something to this effect before (ah yes—here, although that question is almost your situation in reverse), but basically, one thing you should consider is that every coworker and manager in your life right now has things going on that you may not know about that may be affecting their work demeanor and performance. And every job has a history—people who have held your position before, people who have worked in your department before and their peccadilloes and preferences, the company's history, who the bosses are or have been, etc. All of that shapes a company's or department's culture and procedures in ways that you can't know right off the bat.
For instance, at my workplace, we just hired three new entry-level people in a department that experienced 75 percent turnover in the past month—so everyone our entry-level hires interact with is still reeling from the change, and all of the patterns of daily work in that department are up in the air. In fact, I'm really hoping that you're not one of our new hires—I've been worried that as we process everything that's happened here recently, we haven't been doing enough to help our new hires process everything they're probably hearing. Right now, I have to consciously remind myself when dealing with the new hires that they are just that—new, and not part of the old culture in that department. It's kind of up to me in some respects to set the tone through how I respond to the new people's questions and how I speak to them about other people in the company—and to remember that these new people had nothing to do with the problems we previously had in that department.
Ideally, every new hire would start with a clean slate—both in terms of our assumptions about their abilities and in terms of their view of the workplace—and build from there. But of course, the new people in our workplace have already heard stories about the messy personal/personnel issues that preceded the turnover, and they of course know they're coming into a department that recently experienced that. So as you're experiencing, there can definitely be that fear element there—fear of the unknown, fear of making a mistake—and for those of us who've been with the company long-term, we need to work on eliminating or managing that fear. Part of a good manager's job is filtering out the noise of gossip, quelling employees' fears (unless there legitimately is something to fear), giving new employees an outline of the scope of their job and feedback on their performance within those parameters, and going to bat for their charges—basically running interference and dealing with issues so their employees can focus on the work at hand. It sounds like for whatever reason, your manager(s) may not be doing the best job of outlining the scope or your job or giving you feedback on your performance, much less quelling your fears about things or going to bat for you.
What you don't know just yet is whether these are perennial issues with your manager(s)—i.e., whether they may be contributing to the high turnover through poor management—or whether your manager is just dealing with a lot of issues right now (especially if the turnover has been occurring due to forces beyond their control) and is having trouble working through it all. Since you don't know, I would suggest being proactive and requesting clarification and feedback whenever possible at this point. Don't be annoying about it, but if you're unclear about something, professionally pick up the phone (or walk over, or shoot a fast email—how to do this depends on your company culture and the nature of the work) and ask. If you get done with a task and have free time, ask whether there's anything else you can do to help. If it seems like your boss has a free moment at the end of the week, ask if you can get a little feedback on whether you're moving in the right direction with things. Or if you're continually bogged down with conflicting demands, lay out for your boss(es) what you have on your plate and ask how you should prioritize things.
A "sense of professional camaraderie" is exactly what you want to cultivate right now, so you have the right idea. What you need to do is find ways to work through the anxiety, both through taking steps to clarify things and get feedback and through getting to know your coworkers and the work environment better. It's up to you whether you want to go out for beers with coworkers, but going to "events" like that even occasionally can help you get to know your coworkers better and make it so you're a little more of a known quantity among people in the office. At the same time, doing things during the workday like eating lunch together in a conference room or walking across the street for lunch can help you get to know your coworkers just as well, if not better, especially if it becomes a bit of a ritual. If people are so swamped (or so uninvested in the workplace, or so whatever) that they're not asking you to grab lunch, maybe try inviting people to lunch yourself if they seem receptive (maybe the people who've invited you out for beers would be a good place to start?). Everyone has to eat at some point, so that could be an in for you, even if people usually bring stuff back to their desks for the actual eating part.
Another thing to start working on? Not taking your work home with you, whether literally or emotionally or what have you. This can be difficult, especially in salaried "career" jobs where it feels like more than just your paycheck is on the line. I don't know anything about your line of work, but in mine, a so-called "creative" field, I think a lot of people end up unable to relax about their work (and feel a need to be "available" all the time if their work can be accessed online), and it can have a really detrimental effect on their home lives—and that, in turn, can wreck your work life. Start compartmentalizing now, and you'll be better off in so many ways. Your bosses will know that you're serious about getting work done during work hours, and when you walk out the door every day, you'll know that you can stop thinking about it.
And along those lines, when you are at work, you of course want to take pride in what you do, but I would also suggest trying to step back a bit and take your ego out of it whenever you can, especially in situations where you're doing work that's fairly "behind the scenes." One thing I've noticed new hires in my workplace worrying about, especially in the absence of much feedback, is when they put a lot of work into something and it gets changed, they can often feel personally slighted by it, wondering why their superiors didn't ask them about the changes, whether this means they did a poor job, etc. Not that they're not in the right to feel bad about this—ideally, they would get feedback on the changes, any errors, etc. But if something like that happens in your work, it can be helpful to remember that the work you do is for hire—and (ideally) that work isn't personal. (Unless it is, in which case, well, ugh. Lots of other advice applies in that situation.)
Right now, it just sounds like you need to get a handle on what portion of the problems at your workplace can be changed or managed and what portion are "eternal" sorts of problems—and whether that ultimately balances out to a net positive or negative experience. It's the same process you go through in any relationship—learning what to accept and what to try to change, where the boundary between those things is, and when to call it quits. I don't think you're quite at the point where you know enough about why things are the way they are in your workplace to give up and call it quits.
Oh, and the other thing to remember: A rough rule of thumb is that it generally takes about six months to a year to really get comfortable and know the ropes in a new job—and that goes for any job, not just an entry-level one. You probably have a pretty good spidey sense from your previous abusive workplaces to know when things just aren't right—but if, overall, the situation at your new workplace seems workable and not abusive, I'd give yourself a few months to really settle in before you decide.
And on the off chance that you are one of my company's new hires (probably totally unlikely, but...), come talk to me!
posted by limeonaire at 12:43 PM on March 21, 2012
For instance, at my workplace, we just hired three new entry-level people in a department that experienced 75 percent turnover in the past month—so everyone our entry-level hires interact with is still reeling from the change, and all of the patterns of daily work in that department are up in the air. In fact, I'm really hoping that you're not one of our new hires—I've been worried that as we process everything that's happened here recently, we haven't been doing enough to help our new hires process everything they're probably hearing. Right now, I have to consciously remind myself when dealing with the new hires that they are just that—new, and not part of the old culture in that department. It's kind of up to me in some respects to set the tone through how I respond to the new people's questions and how I speak to them about other people in the company—and to remember that these new people had nothing to do with the problems we previously had in that department.
Ideally, every new hire would start with a clean slate—both in terms of our assumptions about their abilities and in terms of their view of the workplace—and build from there. But of course, the new people in our workplace have already heard stories about the messy personal/personnel issues that preceded the turnover, and they of course know they're coming into a department that recently experienced that. So as you're experiencing, there can definitely be that fear element there—fear of the unknown, fear of making a mistake—and for those of us who've been with the company long-term, we need to work on eliminating or managing that fear. Part of a good manager's job is filtering out the noise of gossip, quelling employees' fears (unless there legitimately is something to fear), giving new employees an outline of the scope of their job and feedback on their performance within those parameters, and going to bat for their charges—basically running interference and dealing with issues so their employees can focus on the work at hand. It sounds like for whatever reason, your manager(s) may not be doing the best job of outlining the scope or your job or giving you feedback on your performance, much less quelling your fears about things or going to bat for you.
What you don't know just yet is whether these are perennial issues with your manager(s)—i.e., whether they may be contributing to the high turnover through poor management—or whether your manager is just dealing with a lot of issues right now (especially if the turnover has been occurring due to forces beyond their control) and is having trouble working through it all. Since you don't know, I would suggest being proactive and requesting clarification and feedback whenever possible at this point. Don't be annoying about it, but if you're unclear about something, professionally pick up the phone (or walk over, or shoot a fast email—how to do this depends on your company culture and the nature of the work) and ask. If you get done with a task and have free time, ask whether there's anything else you can do to help. If it seems like your boss has a free moment at the end of the week, ask if you can get a little feedback on whether you're moving in the right direction with things. Or if you're continually bogged down with conflicting demands, lay out for your boss(es) what you have on your plate and ask how you should prioritize things.
A "sense of professional camaraderie" is exactly what you want to cultivate right now, so you have the right idea. What you need to do is find ways to work through the anxiety, both through taking steps to clarify things and get feedback and through getting to know your coworkers and the work environment better. It's up to you whether you want to go out for beers with coworkers, but going to "events" like that even occasionally can help you get to know your coworkers better and make it so you're a little more of a known quantity among people in the office. At the same time, doing things during the workday like eating lunch together in a conference room or walking across the street for lunch can help you get to know your coworkers just as well, if not better, especially if it becomes a bit of a ritual. If people are so swamped (or so uninvested in the workplace, or so whatever) that they're not asking you to grab lunch, maybe try inviting people to lunch yourself if they seem receptive (maybe the people who've invited you out for beers would be a good place to start?). Everyone has to eat at some point, so that could be an in for you, even if people usually bring stuff back to their desks for the actual eating part.
Another thing to start working on? Not taking your work home with you, whether literally or emotionally or what have you. This can be difficult, especially in salaried "career" jobs where it feels like more than just your paycheck is on the line. I don't know anything about your line of work, but in mine, a so-called "creative" field, I think a lot of people end up unable to relax about their work (and feel a need to be "available" all the time if their work can be accessed online), and it can have a really detrimental effect on their home lives—and that, in turn, can wreck your work life. Start compartmentalizing now, and you'll be better off in so many ways. Your bosses will know that you're serious about getting work done during work hours, and when you walk out the door every day, you'll know that you can stop thinking about it.
And along those lines, when you are at work, you of course want to take pride in what you do, but I would also suggest trying to step back a bit and take your ego out of it whenever you can, especially in situations where you're doing work that's fairly "behind the scenes." One thing I've noticed new hires in my workplace worrying about, especially in the absence of much feedback, is when they put a lot of work into something and it gets changed, they can often feel personally slighted by it, wondering why their superiors didn't ask them about the changes, whether this means they did a poor job, etc. Not that they're not in the right to feel bad about this—ideally, they would get feedback on the changes, any errors, etc. But if something like that happens in your work, it can be helpful to remember that the work you do is for hire—and (ideally) that work isn't personal. (Unless it is, in which case, well, ugh. Lots of other advice applies in that situation.)
Right now, it just sounds like you need to get a handle on what portion of the problems at your workplace can be changed or managed and what portion are "eternal" sorts of problems—and whether that ultimately balances out to a net positive or negative experience. It's the same process you go through in any relationship—learning what to accept and what to try to change, where the boundary between those things is, and when to call it quits. I don't think you're quite at the point where you know enough about why things are the way they are in your workplace to give up and call it quits.
Oh, and the other thing to remember: A rough rule of thumb is that it generally takes about six months to a year to really get comfortable and know the ropes in a new job—and that goes for any job, not just an entry-level one. You probably have a pretty good spidey sense from your previous abusive workplaces to know when things just aren't right—but if, overall, the situation at your new workplace seems workable and not abusive, I'd give yourself a few months to really settle in before you decide.
And on the off chance that you are one of my company's new hires (probably totally unlikely, but...), come talk to me!
posted by limeonaire at 12:43 PM on March 21, 2012
At work the stress level is partly due to sense people at work keep giving me that this job has a high turnover, and I'm not sure how much to invest in it. There is very little feedback on the work I get.
On your first point: As others have said above, even at fabulous companies--or maybe especially at those companies!--entry-level positions tend to be an "up or out" sort of deal, where you either prove your chops and get promoted, or leave to pursue more schooling or a different and better job that the entry-level job qualified you for. That's actually a good sign in my book; much worse to be stuck at the sort of dysfunctional workplace where competent people are held in low positions for years because no one can imagine functioning without them in that role.
On the second point: I don't think this is an uncommon feeling among new-ish grads moving into entry-level professional/white-collar jobs. My sense, having worked with a lot of new grads in entry-level positions in my company, is that it's disorienting to move from an environment that is structured around giving you regular feedback on your work and progress towards known goals (school) into an environment where people care mostly that you're taking care of the discrete tasks that are thrown at you and there's little or no emphasis on feedback (corporate work). At my company, the people in entry-level jobs who tend to be most successful are those who throw themselves into being as helpful as possible** and ignore or minimize their need for explicit feedback. The people who tend to be the least successful are those who kind of freeze up from the lack of feedback and become hesitant/afraid to ask questions or bring up relevant information in meetings.
If this is the source of your anxiety, then it will die down--you'll get into the swing of things and start recognizing when your contributions are helpful without needing your boss to tell you how you did. To some extent, this is likely to be an issue at any entry-level job where you're thrown into the work without the background to judge how much you're adding to project; as soon as that piece starts to become clear (should take a few months) you'll start to feel a lot more secure. Just hang in there!
**It's hard to know what "helpful" would be without knowing your specific job/industry, but in general it can include things like keeping track of what outstanding things need to be done on a project so you can either remind team members or volunteer to do it yourself; being organized enough to end every meeting with "okay, here's next steps and what I need to do, is that right?" then actually following through and doing them as soon as possible; or including a brief summary in any email with an attachment of what you're sending and what you need the person receiving it to do (review and return, review and pass up the line, just an FYI, etc). This all sounds like trivial stuff, and it is, but people just coming out of school tend to miss it or think it's out of their domain, and focus instead on doing their little piece as well as possible, sending it out the supervisor, then waiting for feedback--which is definitely a school mindset and translates into the working world poorly.
posted by iminurmefi at 3:05 PM on March 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
On your first point: As others have said above, even at fabulous companies--or maybe especially at those companies!--entry-level positions tend to be an "up or out" sort of deal, where you either prove your chops and get promoted, or leave to pursue more schooling or a different and better job that the entry-level job qualified you for. That's actually a good sign in my book; much worse to be stuck at the sort of dysfunctional workplace where competent people are held in low positions for years because no one can imagine functioning without them in that role.
On the second point: I don't think this is an uncommon feeling among new-ish grads moving into entry-level professional/white-collar jobs. My sense, having worked with a lot of new grads in entry-level positions in my company, is that it's disorienting to move from an environment that is structured around giving you regular feedback on your work and progress towards known goals (school) into an environment where people care mostly that you're taking care of the discrete tasks that are thrown at you and there's little or no emphasis on feedback (corporate work). At my company, the people in entry-level jobs who tend to be most successful are those who throw themselves into being as helpful as possible** and ignore or minimize their need for explicit feedback. The people who tend to be the least successful are those who kind of freeze up from the lack of feedback and become hesitant/afraid to ask questions or bring up relevant information in meetings.
If this is the source of your anxiety, then it will die down--you'll get into the swing of things and start recognizing when your contributions are helpful without needing your boss to tell you how you did. To some extent, this is likely to be an issue at any entry-level job where you're thrown into the work without the background to judge how much you're adding to project; as soon as that piece starts to become clear (should take a few months) you'll start to feel a lot more secure. Just hang in there!
**It's hard to know what "helpful" would be without knowing your specific job/industry, but in general it can include things like keeping track of what outstanding things need to be done on a project so you can either remind team members or volunteer to do it yourself; being organized enough to end every meeting with "okay, here's next steps and what I need to do, is that right?" then actually following through and doing them as soon as possible; or including a brief summary in any email with an attachment of what you're sending and what you need the person receiving it to do (review and return, review and pass up the line, just an FYI, etc). This all sounds like trivial stuff, and it is, but people just coming out of school tend to miss it or think it's out of their domain, and focus instead on doing their little piece as well as possible, sending it out the supervisor, then waiting for feedback--which is definitely a school mindset and translates into the working world poorly.
posted by iminurmefi at 3:05 PM on March 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rhizome at 10:50 AM on March 21, 2012 [1 favorite]