It’s never easy being the new person somewhere. I’m sure we can all remember our first days of schools and colleges or jobs and internships. The anxiety that curls deep in your stomach, maybe mixed with a bit a trepidation. For me, starting my first full-time job this past week was no different.
I woke up with plenty of time to spare the morning of my first day. I felt nauseous. But, I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that I wouldn’t be doing anything but learning the ropes for at least a week. At least, this is what I figured. I hadn’t been informed of a specific time frame for training yet. I figured that they’d cover that on the first day as well.
Then, as always, I started overthinking. What if I messed up somehow? What if it was a horrible place to work? What if they just threw me into the job without training?
Now, logically, I knew none of the things I was thinking would happen. But my brain prides itself on overthinking. So, needless to say, I was a nervous wreck internally. I made myself eat breakfast, fighting off the nausea of nerves. I was mildly successful.
I made the roughly twenty minute drive to my new work gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands. I kept reminding myself that it was only my first day, that I was worrying over nothing. Someone would show me the ropes and that would probably be it for the day.
The day passed in a blur to me. The other new employee and I were shown around the Customer Service department, as well as the building in general. The one thing that struck me — and still strikes me — is how friendly everyone was. Each person — unless if they were on the phone with a customer — greeted us with a cheerful “good morning” or a smile. (Well, that and the fact that they had free tea and coffee, that really struck me as well.)
As it turned out, I got to shadow three different people on my first day, and would continue shadowing them for a week or two. The first one was from my department — International — the second was a part-time employee and the last was another full-time employee, both from the West Coast team. All three of them were very kind to me and had no issues with showing me around the system a little bit and letting me listen in to their calls.
The job didn’t seem easy by any means. All three of the women were clicking through screens at a rapid pace, and typing just as fast. But, as the day went on, the job at least seemed like something I knew that I could learn to do. I had also been provided with a manual for the system, so said learning would probably be pretty easy.
I drove home with a smile on my face. This job may have seemed a bit daunting — what new job doesn’t? — but now I at least knew what I had signed up for. And, honestly, it seemed like a straightforward job. I know I’m going to make mistakes, and I know that there will be some questions that I won’t have the answer to right away. But I feel okay with that now. And for me, that’s all that matters for now.
