Work Tips at 1,000 Days

Sometime in the middle of this February I will have been in the working world for 1,000 days.  1,000 days and nights of carrying the ole lunch pail to work and clocking in and out.  1,000 days of Outlook, Timecards, and The Man (or Woman). 1,000 days of taking the train to work and enjoying nearly every commute as I smirk at cars stuck on the Connector.

This is not intended to be another LinkedIn list, and I admit that I am no more qualified to offer tips at work than any of the rest of you, but I hope that these tips will be of some use to those entering the workforce soon.

• You have a lot to learn; but you will have some good ideas to offer to your superiors and organization.  Be confident in the ideas you can bring from school, but learn when to offer them.  There will be times you speak out of turn and cringe, and there will be instances where you could have offered a helpful idea but refrained.  You won't be fired for either.
• Unless you are at a small start-up, you will have some co-workers who have a wealth of experience.  Take the time to find out who those people are and talk to them.  They may not be in your exact area of expertise, you may not sit near them, and you may have to awkwardly introduce yourself, but it will pay off.  Find a point of commonality and find time to learn from them.
• Conversely, you will work with some people less intelligent and talented than you expected you would.  You probably graduated from a good school surrounded by intelligent friends and classmates.  The world has a wide spectrum of people, and many of those that might be less talented are still engaging, interesting, and good people.  Frankly though, some are weird.
• Don't evaluate work on a day by day or week by week basis.  School often gave you boring classes that weren't what you were interested in - work does the same with projects and tasks.  Don't let a few bad days or weeks send you to Monster.com or LinkedIn too quickly.  Work is more of a long-haul grind than school (except for those getting a Ph.D :)
• I am not an early riser, but getting to work early can have numerous benefits - the biggest - even above being seen as an early-morning go-getter - is time for conversation at the coffee pot/Keurig/donut box.  Here, you become a person and not a number. You can learn about projects, ask to be involved, learn about other people, and generally become more liked by your employees.  Some people aren't morning people and that's understandable - people return to the coffee pot several times throughout the day :)
• Lunch is your most valuable time of the day.  I try to go out to eat with a co-worker, client, or someone else in the industry once a week.  While I may be friendly with these people, I intend for these to be learning lunches.  Prepare questions but don't make it an interview.  Ask those experienced people out to lunch and learn from them. As an added benefit, when you're still young, they will often pay for yours.  During the morning and afternoon grind, people are occupied with meetings, getting things done, phone calls, and other managerial tasks.  But here's what they don't tell you in school: everyone has to eat.  Half of the time, managers will agree to eat with you simply to get away from work stresses.
• Volunteer.  For something. Anything. Make it look like you care about more than whatever you do for 40 hours. Pretend to be interested, then do a good job at whatever you're pretending.
• If you are really passionate about your field, get involved in a professional society. Or start one :)
• Plan vacations.  The year is too long to go week after week without having something to look forward to.
• If you can, work late a few days and cut early on Friday to go to a museum or enjoy something in town.
• While planning ahead, don't gloss over getting good at your technical area of expertise.  Planning for your second degree or CEO take-over will be pointless if you can't get promoted from Widget Make I to Widget Maker II.
• Let's face it, sometimes you need a little gchat/texting/Lync to keep you sane.
• Don't be afraid to show your co-workers you aren't a trained robot.  You can have feelings.  You can get sick.  You can be sad. You can be happy.
• Buy you co-worker's girl scout cookies - mainly because Samoas are delicious.
• Don't be afraid to ask questions.  Super cliche, but still super true.

These probably all don't apply to you, but hopefully you can benefit from a few of these.  I hope you have/had a great first 1,000 days of work, whenever they start or end.

Thanks for reading!