Thousands of students lining up summer work or starting careers are in for rude awakenings.
I’m not talking about their employment prospects. This is a good time to be hunting for work, at least for new college grads.
I’m thinking about the experiences that will stay with them for the rest of their working lives.
Ask anybody what they remember about their first job and chances are they’ll talk about their boss, goofy rules, what they had to wear or the crazy things managers did.
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Ask what they learned and most will say it was how to get along.
Indelible lessons, such as understanding that bosses aren’t like parents, await younger workers. For one thing, you have to listen to what bosses say.
“It’s not an easy thing being young and taking a bunch of instructions from a complete stranger,” says Mike Starr, 20, on a break from his job selling tour bus tickets downtown. “I still don’t like it, but you get used to it.”
The personable Moraine Valley Community College sophomore blurted this admission as he struggled to put into words the wisdom he has accumulated at three summer jobs.
Already, he seems to have grasped the essentials of how to get along with bosses.
“It’s another form of dealing with a person you don’t know,” he says. “Each boss is different — their work ethic, how they do things.”
Charmain Benton, a copy editor for a Chicago-based publisher, landed her first journalism job 30 years ago as a morning anchor and reporter for an Aurora radio station. She said she felt fortunate to get work in the field, even though it meant getting up at 3 a.m. and making the rounds at police stations to find out what had happened overnight.
“I learned what it’s like to get up in the middle of the night and try to speak a straight sentence, to write so people can understand what you’re saying, how local government works — all the things that go into putting together the news of the day.”
But her most important lesson came after she posted cartoons on a door going into the newsroom. She doesn’t recall the subject, only that the station’s owner and general manager told her to take them down.
She asked why they had to come down since her predecessor had posted cartoons in the same place.
“Because it’s my bat and ball,” he answered.
“That was a very clear lesson about who owned the business and who would call the shots,” she says. “If he wanted to take his bat and ball away, he could. I wasn’t thrilled, but he was right. I never forgot it.”
Ed Harmelin, a Chicago lawyer, found his first job by knocking on the door of a dental lab near his South Side home.
He was assigned to the “plastics bench” making dental molds, surrounded by people who had worked there for 35 years. The after-school job made him more determined to get a college education.
“It was pretty boring,” he says.
But it also taught him some early lessons about conflict management and negotiation.
“I learned how not to get angry, to roll with the punches when somebody asks you to do something you don’t particularly like,” he recalls. “I couldn’t afford not to like it. I was the low man. I needed them more than they needed me.
“I saw people that got into confrontations came up on the short end — they got fired or they didn’t get promoted. You have to see the other person’s point of view and meet them at least halfway.”
Melissa Manning’s first job required a lifestyle change. Lured by the prospect of living with friends in Wrigleyville, the University of Illinois grad took a job in the marketing department of a LaSalle Street bank in 1993, before dress codes relaxed.
“It was a real strict corporate environment, and women could not wear pants,” says the communications professional. “I really hated wearing skirts.”
But what she learned about how to behave in a straight-laced environment helped in every job since.
“I learned that presentation is important, in your dress, in your speech,” she says.
Jake Malhotra landed his first job after college at a software consulting firm in Cincinnati during the high-tech frenzy of the late 1990s.
His salary doubled within 18 months, but he left as the firm floundered.
He could see trouble brewing, recalls Malhotra, now a senior project manager at a Chicago-based insurer.
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“You kind of think hierarchy exists for a reason. You tell your immediate manager your concerns,” he says, and hope word travels up the ladder.
Whether it did isn’t clear, but he forged some of his closest friendships at the firm.
To this day, he laughs with his buddies about a meeting at which 15 people debated for more than an hour whether to label a spreadsheet tab “coverage” or “coverage info.”
“It was kind of a reality check,” he says. “I learned how not to do things.”
What did he learn about getting along?
“Happy hour is essential.”
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What did you learn on your first job? Share your stories by e-mailing [email protected].