Throughout the different stages of my life learning has been a a constant driving force, no matter where I go, no matter what I am doing, I am always learning. This is a good thing, I have to think, though it can be annoying to have to satiate this never ending curiosity that haunts my every moment. Ok, maybe I’m being dramatic.
In any case, this post is going to share with you a number of things I have learned the hard way so that maybe you won’t have to. Or at least you might be better prepared if similar such situations come your way. Some of these will need to be adapted to the current state of the world (i.e. the pandemic)
- You are not necessarily stuck in whatever role you get hired for. I have been hired as an Assembler and after learning that I could program (the company somehow missed that on my resume) I got promoted to Software Quality Engineer at twice the pay – and this was not a position that existed at the company until I impressed upon the company that we needed such a position and that I could fill it.
- It is a great idea to find a mentor (or mentors) at most jobs, especially if you are in a junior role. Many of the senior employees have a wealth of knowledge and are more than happy to share it with you if you ask.
- It is possible to motivate change. If there is something about your job or the company you work for that doesn’t sit well with you, but “it’s always been done that way,” write up a proposal to do something about it. Frame it in terms of how much money it will make for the company, or better yet, how much money it will save the company. Then present your proposal to your immediate supervisor and get their buy in. They will generally be happy to pass the proposal upward if it’s a good one, because your good work makes them look good too.
- Speak up. Always. Staying quiet when you have something to say is missing an opportunity to show that you have valuable input and the chance to participate in the solution.
- Ask more questions. All the time. It shows that you are engaged with the discussion and that you are motivate to keep moving forward. It also gives you more information that will help you better know how to move forward.
- Start each day (or end the previous day) with a list of tasks you plan to accomplish in the upcoming work period. Then when you check them off, add them to the list your are building in number 7.
- Keep a list of the things you have accomplished. That way if it ever comes to pass that you need to show what you have done, you have it already on hand and won’t be caught staring blankly at a document trying to remember what you did that day, let alone over the last few months or a year.
- Finish what you start. Maintaining a long list of unfinished projects is not impressive.
- Figure out which part of the day is most productive for you. Schedule your time such that the tasks that require the most concentration are the things you attack in your most productive time of the day. Save the boring stuff (paperwork, emails, phone calls) for your less productive times of day.
- If you are someone who needs to interact with people a lot because you have a lot of the answers (I have been at my current job for going on 7 years now, and most of the people that were here when I started here have retired by now, and I have taken it upon myself to collect their notebooks and other materials, catalogued them, and have consistently worked to gather all the knowledge that I could, knowing that eventually I would be the one who would be answering these questions – the average age at the company when I started was 65. I’m one of the younger people) SET ASIDE TIMES OF THE DAY THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO INTERACT AND ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS. It is not that easy for the average person to refocus when they get interrupted.
- Now this goes against common thinking on the topic, and goes against what I said in number 10, but if you do get interrupted and the task at hand will only take two minutes, just do it. Usually short tasks don’t take much thought, and if you don’t do it now, you will forget about it unless you write it down. And then writing it down feels silly, because you could have finished the task in the time it took to write it down. (i.e. Someone needs a label printed but they don’t know where to find it – I just go print the label. Eventually, in the case of labels, I just made a program with commonly used labels and allow the user to click a picture of the label and fill in one basic field, then autopopulate the rest of the label from a database. But I think you get the idea: if it’s complicated, schedule time to do the task later. If it’s simple, do it now. If it’s simple and quite common, automate it.
- It’s okay to ask for what you need.
What I need right now is to go relax. It’s Sunday and I’m exhausted from the weekend, which included halloween costume shopping with my two step kids. Always a blast, but often exhausting, those darling children.