As a fresh university graduate joining the corporate world, I have realized that getting accustomed to a new working environment is pretty much like learning to drive all over again. You can read all about the Highway Code, but nothing can prepare you enough for the real thing, like finally getting behind the driver’s seat and hitting the road for the first time. That’s when the rubber meets the road.
Similarly, no amount of literature can adequately equip you for your new life as an employee, except actually getting yourself an opportunity and then learning on the road, just like driving. You aren’t prepared until you meet that road hog cruising on the wrong lane towards you, lights blurring your sight and horn deafening your ears, then you realize you have to act faster than you can say OMG.
In this post I will share my experience as I transitioned from university to a real working environment.
Naturally, humans tend to over analyze and judge new surroundings, trying to predict how and what things will work out. This is because we find bliss in familiarity and comfort.
This was no different for me when I first walked into the ABC Bank Head Office in Westlands, Nairobi. I felt like an army recruit going to the battlefield for the first time, armed only with courage (but shaking inside) and perhaps a naïve sense of patriotism instilled by no-nonsense brigadiers on the training field. Ready for combat but nervous about having to duck bullets, maneuver dangerous terrain and brave the elements, if only to keep my head on my shoulders.
My first mental exercise was to figure out any similarities between my new territory and my former comfort zone. Just to feel psychologically at ease.
I was in for a welcome shock. Culture shock if you will. Until now, much of what I knew was monotonously sitting in dull lecture halls listening (or sometimes just watching) professors humming some distant-sounding theories and concepts. Outside the lecture halls were ever noisy chatterbox like young souls who walked and talked like campus was one big crystal ball planet where time was an alien concept. They lived in the here and now.
It’s like I went to bed in my campus room and woke up on a desk in a bank, surrounded by dapper-looking men and women, young and not-so you, who seem to have it all figured out. They all carry themselves with a rich sense of self worth. They act like a clock’s secondhand. Everything in the bank is synchronized. Everyone is like a cog in a gigantic gear where when one cog turns, the rest make a corresponding movement. Professionalism, decorum, and a polished sense of camaraderie. This was definitely a change of pace from what I had been accustomed to- an almost a chaotic and endless jamboree.
I was beginning to realize how different the people around me were. I call them colleagues, not classmates. They are convivial and concerned, yet cultured. They are calm and composed, like the different tree species in the Amazon forest.
To get me familiarized with the institution and feel comfortable, I was taken through an acclimatization ritual called induction, not orientation like in campus. No. Here it’s not about fun but function. I was being prepared to function, to be a cog in the big wheel, and to turn in synch with my fellow cogs. So boy meets (not girl) but world. The world of rules and regulations. We had them in campus, but who cared. If anything, they were there to be broken. We were rebels, just harmless rebels.
This is work, folks. The first thing that caught my attention was the working hours- 8am to 5:30pm. Back in campus I decided what time it was. Clocks and watches were just accessories. No more of that here. But hey, change is the only constant in life, they say. Woe unto ye if thou changeth not.
Don’t even mention the dress code prescribed on the rule book! It sounded to me like a quinine prescription to a four-year old. I was accustomed to khakis, jeans and t-shits and sneakers in college. Without any prior warning, life has condemned me to a life of formal wear. Ties. O boy! My first reaction was to mentally count how many ties I had in my wardrobe. None! Neither did I have enough formal pants and shirts. I looked at my phone clock and told myself I needed time to visit a boutique I saw on my way to the office, to grab a few of these requirements. Then I noticed I am also required to work two Saturdays in a month! I immediately thought to myself “well there go a few of my Friday nights?”
After a few days of settling in, it became easier and easier to adapt in this new environment. I started identifying a few of the similarities between university and working in an establishment. And wallowing in them. Even though you get older and more mature, waking up at 7am to go to work does not get any easier than waking up for those dreaded 8-9am lectures, regardless of the situation!
Now when it comes to the actual content of work, this is where many of the similarities can be drawn. To start with, much the same as at the university; there is a supervisor that you have to report to, and meet the deadlines set out for you. It’s a good thing the supervisor I’m working under is kind, smart and understanding. Some people may not be as lucky!
I have come to appreciate that a lot of the skills, information and knowledge you gain from university are very relevant and crucial in the workplace. Just in case you thought otherwise. Much of my tasks now are not very different from those I did in college, except that I now apply what I studied. The intensity and expected outcomes also differ. For example I did my degree in Business Management and Marketing, which consisted of a lot of group work, and I’m working in the Product Development & Marketing department at ABC Bank and teamwork is essential. What I learnt at university has made my transition a lot easier and prepared me on how to conduct myself and interact with others in a professional working environment.
Making the transition from university to a real working environment can seem like a confusing ordeal. It is completely normal to feel worried about change or transition in your life. However, I think people should not feel unsettled by change, but instead welcome and embrace it, then face it head on! After all you didn’t go to college to idle around or remain in your familiar territory, did you?
I have never been this ready to face the world and to take up major career roles.