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    How to Survive Your First Year on the Job
    How to Survive Your First Year on the Job
    How to Survive Your First Year on the Job
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    How to Survive Your First Year on the Job

    By Sid Adelman

    ()

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    About this ebook

    You just landed your first professional job. You are in a new environment, one in which you have had little experience. Your experience working at McDonalds will not help you much. Unfortunately, you have been consistently exposed to models of behavior in movies and on television that are dangerously inappropriate, wrong, and don’t work. It’s obvious the writers and directors have never been in a professional office, or if they have, they learned nothing even as they were fired. The MBA courses and the Liberal Arts Program at your college or university never taught you what you really need to know.

    As you enter the professional world you are, no doubt, eager to start, to show them what you can do but you may also have trepidation that you will say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, dress inappropriately, and insult your boss or your coworkers. You are concerned about how you will come across and how you will be judged.
    The book will answer such questions as:
    * How do I establish a good working relationship with my boss without appearing to suck up?
    * How do I find and effectively use a mentor?
    * What kinds of problems should I bring to my manager?
    * When is the right time to ask for a raise?
    * How do I prepare for a performance review?
    * What do I do when my boss is an idiot?
    * How do I represent my accomplishments?
    * How much information should I share with my coworkers?
    * How do I avoid dead-end assignments?
    * How good does my work product need to be?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSid Adelman
    Release dateMay 17, 2012
    ISBN9781476149523
    How to Survive Your First Year on the Job
    Author

    Sid Adelman

    Sid worked for IBM for 24 years and has his own consulting consulting organization for the last 20. He has seen the good, the bad and the terribly unattractive over those many years.

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      Book preview

      How to Survive Your First Year on the Job - Sid Adelman

      HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR FIRST YEAR ON THE JOB

      By

      Sid Adelman

      -

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      Published by Sid Adelman on Smashwords

      Copyright 2012 by Sid Adelman

      License Notes: This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      *****

      Acknowledgements

      I want to thank all of the people I've observed making both wise and not-so-wise decisions. I also want to thank the folks who've reviewed the earlier and the final versions of the book, especially Rich Kraus and Charles Leo. Any errors, misspellings, grammatical mistakes, or problems with this text are obviously not mine because these morons should have caught them. Wait, here's the first lesson - take responsibility for your work and do not blame others for your blunders.

      *****

      Chapter 1 - Introduction

      You just landed your first professional job. You are in a new environment, one in which you have had little experience. Your experience working at McDonalds will not help you much. Unfortunately, you have been consistently exposed to models of behavior in movies and on television that are dangerously inappropriate, wrong, and don’t work. It’s obvious the writers and directors have never been in a professional office, or if they have, they learned nothing, even as they were fired. The MBA courses and the Liberal Arts Program at your college or university never taught you what you really need to know.

      This book is addressed to the millions of students who graduate each year from colleges and universities intending to go into the professional workforce. The book is also relevant for high school graduates who will be getting their first real job. What you have been taught does not adequately prepare you for working in a professional environment. This book addresses the pitfalls that face each new hire and serves as a roadmap for those who want to get off to a fast start on a successful career.

      This book will keep you out of trouble and will also help in the countless situations you're sure to encounter, especially those with your boss and coworkers. This book is also intended for use as a reference when new and difficult situations arise.

      The approaches and recommendations are based on the author’s numerous missteps and embarrassing situations, as well as his observation of the mistakes of coworkers, bosses, and clients. I’ll share my faux pas, but will cleverly disguise the mistakes of others I've observed.

      As you enter the professional world, you are, no doubt, eager to start, to show them what you can do; but you may also have trepidation that you will say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, dress inappropriately, and insult your boss or your coworkers. You are concerned about how you will come across and how you will be judged.

      The book will answer such questions as:

      * How do I establish a good working relationship with my boss without appearing to suck up?

      * How do I find and effectively use a mentor?

      * What kinds of problems should I bring to my manager?

      * When is the right time to ask for a raise?

      * How do I prepare for a performance review?

      * What do I do when my boss is an idiot?

      * How do I represent my accomplishments?

      * How much information should I share with my coworkers?

      * How do I avoid dead-end assignments?

      * How good does my work product need to be?

      I want to assume that you have a strong work ethic—this does not mean you spend 70 hours each week at the office, it means you want to do a good job and are willing to work hard. If you don’t have this work ethic, your professional efforts will always be mediocre. You may get by, but work will be a drudge for you. You will watch the clock, live for Friday afternoons, and dread coming back to work on Monday. An important component of your life will be unsatisfactory and unfulfilling. The person with a strong work ethic also has an outside life with family, friends, and other interests. Unfortunately, this book will not give you that work ethic; sorry, either you have it or you don’t.

      Who is Harold?

      Each chapter in this book will have a case study that includes a dilemma faced by our new employee, Harold, who is confronted with a non-trivial work-related problem. Harold will be presented with constructive solutions that might extricate him from this dilemma. Since this book is a work-in-progress, I am soliciting other solutions for Harold and, if one of your solutions is chosen, an updated version of the book will contain your solution, along with the appropriate attribution (your name). Send these solutions to howtosurviveyourfirstyear@gmail.com.

      *****

      Chapter 2 - The New Job

      "There ain’t no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box." Meat Loaf

      There is nothing in life that prepares a professional for his or her first job. There is often an expectation that the job will be glamorous, well paid, interesting, challenging, and well appreciated. It rarely is so. This chapter will help dispel those erroneous notions and is appropriate for those just coming into the professional job world, as well as for those switching employers, or for those wanting to change jobs within the same organization.

      The Right Organization

      You don’t want a job with the corporate equivalent of the Titanic. If a company is sinking, or if the last CEO has been indicted for financial or ethical transgressions, the morale in the company will be terrible, you won’t learn much, there will be no advancement for you, and you will likely find yourself looking for another job in a short time. A future employer may see you as a contributor to the company’s failure or just a bad-luck type of person. In either case, you will probably be shunned.

      The best company to work for is one that is profitable and growing. You want a company that has a commitment to training. You want a company that rewards and promotes based on merit and performance. You want a company that is willing to take risks, one that is willing to go into new markets with new products, and is ready and wiling to try out different business approaches. You want a company where race, gender, nationality, sexual preference, and political affiliation are not considered in hiring or in promotions - even though none of these biases might directly affect you. An organization that discriminates has some latent dysfunctional characteristics that will eventually hurt their ability to survive.

      Try to assess the organization’s culture including the dress code—look at what your coworkers are wearing, the language used—you might be shocked at the office profanity, and try to assess their management style. Some organizations thrive on independence, while others subscribe to micromanaging and have a strict emphasis on reporting and paperwork. Some organizations have an emphasis on teams rather than on individual accomplishments. There are a few companies that treat their employees like owners by paying for performance and listening to everyone in the organization. This is not just pretend interest. They push authority down in the hierarchy and

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