My first day at work: where do I begin?
Well, let me start this way. I didn’t know that transitioning from motherhood into a new workspace could be extremely overwhelming. No amount of preparation can fully prepare you to occupy your new space. There’s always something new you have to learn and adapt to quickly to function effectively in your position.
The feeling is just like your first day at school, standing at the school gate, looking at all the students with excited expressions on their faces and wondering who will be your friend or foe. Yes, that’s exactly how I felt. But I don’t have an exit plan except to take a leap of faith and hope things work out as planned.
IN THE MIDDLE OF CLIENT WORK
Trust me, you don’t want to begin a new job at a new company while they’re in the middle of client work, especially when there have been previous briefing meetings that you weren’t part of. When it happens that way, you have a lot to catch up on, and it becomes overwhelming for you.
But I received a lovely piece of advice from a co-worker who asked me to take it one step at a time. You can’t learn everything at once, so just capture one important lesson at a time.
THE FEELING OF NOT BEING ENOUGH
At the beginning, you are going to feel incompetent, like you know absolutely nothing. That’s how I felt. You will feel that way because it’s a new environment. They have their own way of handling tasks and solving problems.
You just have to lay down everything you know, learn their way of doing things so that you can equally do it yourself, and add your experience to it to make it uniquely yours. That’s my approach to handling myself at my new workstation.
And, of course, this is my first day at work, so I’ll be briefing you as time goes on about what happens.
MY NEW TEAMMATES
They seem pretty nice initially, but I’m still treading carefully. One of my close friends always tells me that the first person to receive me so well is the person I need to be wary of. That is a general statement, but an intelligent one, of course. I’m yet to experience it hands-on.
There’s so much that can go right or wrong at a workplace. The most important goal right now is not to get caught in a ‘crossfire.’
Tell me, are you just transitioning into a new workplace, or are you just new to your work entirely? How was your first day?
And to you who have been in the working world for some time now, do you recall how you felt on your first day at work?
I want to hear from you in the comments.
