Six Month Anniversary

Today marks the six month anniversary of my big girl job! I’ve certainly grown a lot over the last six months and there are a few nuggets of advice I’d like to share with other people starting out in the real world.

My very fist day at work, my team decorated my desk!

1- Believe in yourself.

You were hired to be at this position for a reason. Someone believed that you have the ability to do it, so you should believe in yourself, too! In the first six months of your working life, you will realize that the world is more disorganized than you had hoped. Projects come up, people need to do them, and it doesn’t really matter if you did them before, you’re going to learn how to do them now!

Don’t be scared to volunteer for a project you don’t have experience doing. Someone will appreciate you taking the work off their back, they’ll be happy to help you, and you’ll learn a lot along the way.

2- Be an information sponge.

While you should believe in your abilities, you should also continue to learn so much that nothing else will fit in your brain. If your company has multiple functions, figure out what they are, how they influence what you do, and what you do that influences them. Your job may be a small piece of the puzzle, but you want to see the big picture!

Being an information sponge will also help you in the long term as you become proficient in other areas besides your own. Again, being an information sponge is about diversifying the extent of knowledge you have, so that you can adopt to any situation.

3- Have fun!

Work is work, sure, we all know that. But the people you meet at work can also become great friends. My day-to-day life is that much more enjoyable because of the people I work with. We may not interact too often every day, but stopping by a cube to say hello, eating lunch in the kitchen, or gracefully getting attacked by nerf guns at your desk are all things I do on a daily basis.

I not only have friends in my department and on my account teams, but have also grown to know people all around the company. This will not only make your work life better, but your actual life, too.

Here’s to many many more happy months in the working world!