Help me be a worker bee

July 17, 2006 3:34 PM

I start a new job next week at a local newspaper in the production end of ad sales...ie. design. This will be the first time I've worked in three years. I dumbed down my resume a lot to get the job, which I really want. It's in a small town, which I moved to three years ago and the paper publishes twice a week....small town....really small town. I used to work at a high profile 24 hour Cable News Network located in Atlanta, GA, which shall remain nameless, wink. wink, in a very stressful, high responsibility position...

My question is how do I transform into a worker bee at this new job, which is what the job descrition is, instead of being the crazed, whacked out, stressed out, power player that I used to be? I left the job in Atlanta because I hated what I had become....A person not a lot of people liked....It was not that I am a bad person but was pushed into management positions to make critical decisions that made a lot of people unhappy....or ego's bruised....usually the latter...It's that kind of company.

So, here I sit. Starting a new job that could be called the "Mayberry Gazette" for all practical purposes, and want to just be a worker bee....How do I quell the instinct I have to take over every project, make it perfect, and stress everyone out in the process....ie...to not be the alpha center on everything, and every subject and every detail.

posted by jamie939 to Human Relations (12 answers total)

This might be simpler than you're making it out to be.

1. Show up and do what you're told. Leave on time.

2. Pick up a good hobby, or develop a great life outside of work, that you can direct all your extra energy towards. Make work about supporting your life outside of the job.

These rules always worked for me. If things started to go sour, I was always breaking one of them.
posted by milarepa at 3:55 PM on July 17, 2006 [3 favorites]

I would start by trying not to talk to any of your co-workers for at least a week unless you are giving a compliment or asking for an opinion. That should give the new you enough breathing space to rear it's pretty little head.
posted by haikuku at 3:55 PM on July 17, 2006

You're going into a different kind of pressure cooker. Your job is to clock in, get the ads that are in your basket done, and get out. You're really in a job that is attuned to your customer's desires now; you're no longer in a big city, and the small business owners you'll find there have VERY clear ideas of what they want their ad to be and how they want it designed. Just follow them. Do your creative work in your own time.
posted by SpecialK at 3:59 PM on July 17, 2006

This is absolutely important: find something to do that is more important to you than your job. Find three things to do that is more important to you than your job.

I've known many people who have that Type-A personality/killer instinct, and the way they avoid trampling on other people at work is to have so much else going on that they don't have the bandwidth to even want to dominate at work.
posted by chimaera at 4:35 PM on July 17, 2006

Do you know how big the staff of your paper is? I used to work at a twice-weekly paper in Oregon, and it was no cake walk. The publisher was too cheap to fully staff the place, and it was not uncommon for graphics folks to work 50 or 60 hours. Here's hoping you're not going into something like that.

Congratulations on the job, though.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 5:00 PM on July 17, 2006

SpecialK has a good point -- small towns sometimes have really specific cultures. I spent only six months in a small town, and I was outspoken until I noticed that there were many tiny differences in etiquette from what I was used to. People behaved differently. Maybe because you will see the same people in the grocery store every day for the rest of your life.

And there is a lot of history and specifics you probably don't know yet. (Unless -- did you grow up there?) Maybe they want really ugly design because it appeals to Madame X, and she affects everyone else's opinions. Or, maybe they have to avoid referring to a feud that happened three years ago. Or, maybe businesses are walking a thin line between appealing to loggers and hippies, or trying to clearly appeal to only one group.

You could just approach stuff you would otherwise judge as bad as if you were an anthropologist. "Hmm, Pizza Barn LIKES having their tagline not line up with their photo because they find it quirky.... Fascinating..." Are many people's design sensibility straight out of... what year? 1987 high school yearbook style? The ACDC album cover? Why is everyone into that log-cabin lettering?
posted by salvia at 5:01 PM on July 17, 2006

Oh, and I worked on a small Weekly in Oregon, the Clackamas Review, and like Crouton said -- the graphics department was a pressure cooker, mostly because the paper was 98% ads.
posted by SpecialK at 5:30 PM on July 17, 2006

BTW, Crouton: Not sure who you're working for, but I was on The Clackamas Print's Staff in 98-99, the year we pwnt the ONPA's weekly category. (aka - "Generally Excellent"). I worked for the Clackamas Review in the ad sales department and OregonLive before I realized I was better at writing software to run the admin side of newspapers than I was at actually being a part of the staff.
posted by SpecialK at 5:35 PM on July 17, 2006

ugh. i am 4 months into this transition myself. the best advice i 'd offer is to realize that the dynamics of a small office are vastly different then a large organization. it's best to not make waves until you know what's going on.
posted by lester at 5:43 PM on July 17, 2006

having worked both at small papers in small towns and giant magazines in the big city, i would say without a doubt that i worked much longer hours and allowed work to take over my life much more at the smallest paper. there's no room to say "no" to people, simply because there are fewer people.

on the other hand, you build a different kind of relationship working in small towns. it's much friendlier and homier. people will ask about your family and actually give a shit what you say.
posted by brina at 8:20 PM on July 17, 2006

You may find yourself tempted to "make things better" at your new job. Resist this temptation unless specifically invited to do something. "We've always done it this way" is a popular philosophy in small-town operations, and they resent change -- especially change suggested by someone from "the big city."

Remember, you want to get along, not make waves. Be humble, eager to learn, excited to be working where you are. Be interested in your co-workers, not as competition, but as potential friends. Good luck!
posted by Seabird at 10:08 PM on July 17, 2006

In this case, you have to be sure to show that the aethestic quality of your output is not the same as the quality of your performance. Salvia is spot-on about the particular ideas and "visionary" design ideas that you will be working with. You have to be able to let it go when you explain that it will be so much better if they actually left some padding or spacing for the elements or used less than six fonts and they ignore you.

That will be a huge challenge if you have a history of taking over a project and making it perfect. You will not like what you end up producing in a lot of cases. It will never ever meet your idea of what it could become. That's a hard pill to swallow for a perfectionist, but if you realize that going in, you'll be better off. That's why you need to show to yourself and your supervisors that the quality of your work lies elsewhere, be it customer service, attention to detail, meeting deadlines, etc.
posted by ml98tu at 6:44 AM on July 18, 2006