Five realities in the workplace (Part 1 of 2)

First of all, my hearty congratulations to the Mass Comm graduates from the Far Eastern University (FEU). They will have their Big Day on April 15. Before this milestone, I had the privilege of exchanging thoughts with them about the “real world.” There, I shared five things that I wish someone had told me when I was their age. I am now putting these realities on paper to all the graduating students out there.

The first reality is that it’s not all in the books. I graduated with an engineering degree. If you know engineering, it is mostly books, graphs, calculators and numbers. When I went to may first-ever job interview, this person asked me, “Nelson, why should you get a higher salary than that clerk over there?” I thought, That’s a pretty straightforward questions. How will I answer it? So I stammered and said something like, “Because I studied hard to get this degree. Because I will be working hard.”

The interviewer replied, “The reason why you will be paid more is that as an engineer, you will be responsible for a large machine. If that machine explodes under your watch, you — not to mention the company — will be in big trouble. But the clerk is not responsible for that machine. Rather, he is tasked to file and keep records. If he fails, it makes little impact on the company. So the reason why you will be paid more is that your responsibilities are greater.”

Chances are, we don’t learn things like that in books. If you had a summer or part-time job, your advantage is that you got some “real world” experience that will serve you well in your resume, interview and next job. This is not to say that schools, books and grades are not important.They are very important. My point is that our education does not end when you receive your diploma. There are things that we don’t even know that we don’t know.

Years later, it was turn to interview a job applicant. He came from a good school and even studied the same engineering course as mine. I asked him, “If we hire you, what are your expectations for the job?” He said something like this, “I expect to apply here what I learned in school.” (Chances are, if you are a fresh graduate, you’ll be saying something like this, too.) I replied, “YOu will be learning a lot here what you did not learn in school. It’s one thing to see a picture of a machine. It’s another thing when the machine is right in front of you.”

By the way, we did hire him and he is doing very well.The key is always be humble and teachable. Nobody likes a know-it all. Find mentors. They don’t necessarily need to be people. Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric, once said that among his best mentors are the business periodicals he head voraciously. He gleaned a lot of insights and information from them. He learned from the mistakes of his fellow CEOs and prevented him from committing the same blunders.

Similarly for us, having mentors can save us from making inferior career choices. For examples, if we have two job offers, they may advise us, out of their experience, that it would be better in the long term to work for Company X instead of Company Y. Their counsel can save us from years of wasted effort, even yearning potential. So keep learning and have several mentors.

Which leads me to second reality in the workplace: Things may not be what you expect. Many young people choose a certain course, believing it will lead to a glamorous profession: meeting celebrities, earning big bucks, travelling widely. Then when they have entry-level jobs, they are saddled with tasks that they feel are beneath them. They may find their bosses less than sympathetic and the customers so hard to please. Don’t forget that certain jobs will entail long hours, even weekends.

In due time, a gnawing sense of disillusionment sets in and many will be tempted to say, “I am in the wrong career, I wasted four years of college.” Don’t think like that. The antidote is to do your research. Instead of leaving college starry-eyed and bent on conquering the world, do your homework as to what your desired career demands. In fact, smart job-hunters even check out how it would be like to work for a particular company: the culture, the values, the pressure, even the internal politics. The goal is to know what your career will cost you. If you can life with it anyway, then pay your dues until you attain such a stature that you can dictate your price and position.

So never harbour any illusions about your chosen career, be it advertising, journalism, engineering, accounting, whatever. Every career has its upsides and downsides. A classic example is that many want to work in call centers until they pick up the phone and this angry customers screams invectives at them. The trick is to have a balanced view of that career and go in with eyes wide open. (TO be continued).