A Meditation on the Five Things I’ve Learned During my First Desk Job

My life is full of transitions right now. My partner and I are moving into a new house, I just graduated university, I just got back from an international trip…it’s a lot. Nothing in these past few months for me has been super steady or consistent. When people ask me how I’m doing, I’ll mention something that seemed like common knowledge to me and they’ll say, “When did you start doing that?”

The biggest of these changes is that I just began a desk job for the first time where I work standard 9-5 hours. This is the first job I’ve had that relies so heavily on Microsoft Outlook, Excel, and Wi-Fi. For the majority of my adult life, I’ve been a server or working in a bakery. My best friend, who has been working corporate for almost a full year, asked me on a much-needed walk yesterday how I’ve been handling the transition, and I don’t think my answer surprised her. 

I laughed and said, “My butt hurts.”

On a more serious note, what have I learned in four weeks at a new company—and a first company? I want to catalogue my thoughts now, one month in, and maybe in a year’s time, I’ll have a whole new perspective.

1. I want to be taught about every step in the process, not just the steps that pertain to me. Emails and training guides aren’t as comprehensive as I would have expected, and so learning is often self-directed and an exercise in common sense. This isn’t a bad thing, I don’t mind teaching myself things, but what I’ve learned during that experience is that I like to know why I’m doing something as opposed to just completing the single task itself. Why do I need to scan these documents? Why does this customer payment need to be filed, but not that one? What stage of the process are we in? I’ve learned that I learn best when I understand the roadmap of a series of tasks. I can’t do task B before task A has been completed, but when you’re new, every task seems unrelated, a tornado of numbers and emails that look identical. If I ever get the privilege of being a manager someday, I want to teach new people what the entire process looks like so they can understand what makes their role vital to the operation.

2. Customer service skills are the foundation of every single industry, and being excellent at them sets me apart in any role. My years of fixing peoples eggs (I worked at a diner) and apologizing even when things aren’t directly my fault serve me no matter where I am. People-to-people skills can de-escalate even the most upset customer. They can make someone’s day. They can bring a client back who may have been considering going with another service. A strong customer service background will always come in handy, and I’m grateful I have mine.

3. I like having things to look forward to outside of work. I don’t hate my job. It’s the opposite, actually—I’ve always liked working because it gives me purpose and pride. That being said, going home each day to do nothing but doom-scroll on my phone does make me kind of sad. I want my life to feel full, so random games of tennis with my friend, hikes on a Sunday, even just planning out a movie and dinner for my Friday night…those moments make the week feel like they’re heading toward something great, not just identically spiraling on top of one another. 

4. Being afraid to ask questions is the mirage of independence. Asking questions is the most important part of a new job—but it’s not just about learning. In my mind, not being afraid to ask questions is symbolic of a thin line. I’ve just been hired in a competitive market, and I’m trying to prove that I was the right choice, so I want to learn quickly so I can impress, while making as few mistakes as possible. Being eager to ask questions shows my manager that I’m confident enough in my value that I’m willing to be seen as a little silly for a minute in order to do a good job. It’s not actually about asking a question, because all of that knowledge will come—it’s about proving to myself and others that I’m worth training. Independence is a short-term win that doesn’t set me up well for the next time I’m faced with a similar (but not identical) problem.

5. I enjoy learning. I kind of always knew this about myself, but the joy I get from not understanding a problem to having mastered it fills me with a pride that’s hard to replicate sometimes. I achieve similar highs from climbing literal mountains—but I think they represent the same thing. I can do things that are hard, that challenge me, and that (to start) feel totally outside my skill set. I genuinely enjoy the feeling of the struggle, the sweat of the climb, because I know one day I’ll yearn to learn something new all over again.

Moving forward, I think I’ll keep writing about this transition into “adulthood”. Maybe I’ll try to document each career change as it hits so that I can figure out what I like and don’t like, what I’m good at and what I struggle with. In the years to come, if I’ve made a little update like this for each job I’ve had, I’ll have a diary of my career from its very beginning to its end—and I’ll know myself better because of that.