I’ve made more than my fair share of work mistakes. Some were preventable and some were downright cringe-worthy, but most were necessary to help me transition from a long-time student to a full-time employee. In this article I’ll cover a few examples, hoping to give future graduates the career and work-life advice I never had—and a bit of humor never hurt.
- Don’t send a GIF in work chat unless your coworker/boss has already done so. One day during my summer internship, my boss told me I could go home early. I responded with a GIF, specifically the GIF below. Her response was brief, “WTF, Alex?” Even though we were very close in age, she didn’t get the joke and was mostly weirded out. Big whoops.
The infamous GIF! - If no one asked your opinion, its because they didn’t want it. As a young, naïve employee I thought it was my obligation to provide input on projects/events that didn’t concern me and provide helpful feedback. Yeah, nobody cares—they’ve been doing this for years, and frankly don’t care that you think the book they’re using is outdated or that the giveaway prizes are borderline offensive. Sometimes the best thing to do is smile and nod.
- You can be right, or you can be liked. Here’s an example: say a coworker makes a misstatement during a meeting—one you know you can easily disprove—don’t spend three minutes having a “lively discussion” (aka what a normal person would call an “argument”) on the subject if it’s not that important. For one thing, everyone hates long meetings; for another, no one likes a know-it-all. Keep your inner devil’s advocate to yourself—he’s got enough apostates.
- Don’t show up unprepared to a meeting. If your boss schedules a preliminary meeting on a new law or regulation, don’t wait until 5 minutes beforehand to review the materials. Seriously. It’s your job to show up prepared, not just be a warm body in a chair. (Bonus points if you can bring forward some questions or concerns you had about implementation of the rule and how that might interact with the business!)
- Stay out of office politics. Are you a summer intern? There’s no way you could understand the intricacies of the beef between Linda in Accounting and Jackie in Insurance, so don’t even try. Where possible, you want to be on good terms with everyone and avoid taking sides in arguments. I know law school emphasized conflict resolution, but just stay out of it.
- Nice guys (and girls) finish last. I know you want to be helpful and prove your value to your company, but don’t let people push heaps of work onto you just because they know you won’t say no. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for them, and its just downright annoying. I’ve made this mistake more times than I care to admit, finding myself elbow-deep in work and realizing, “hey, wait! I’m not even in this department!” There are ways to be helpful while guarding your own time. Some suggestions include: “sure, I’d be happy to review your first draft when its complete,” or “given my current workload I can only help with x and y.” It’s not bad to stand up for yourself!
None of these work mistakes are career-ending, but they can be pretty embarrassing, but if you keep a level head, put in the time for preparation, and try and avoid inter-office conflict, you’ll do just fine!
