It was not the job I wished for. I was abused. I wanted professional growth. I learned lessons from my first job, and I will share them here.
Whether you are curious about the lessons from the first job of a stranger because of boredom, or you got hired at your first job and want to know what to expect: Hi!
Working is not fun to many people because office politics is stressful, and maybe disgusting. That is one reason I am reluctant to return to the corporate world.
I will talk about my first job after graduating college (I was a working student). But first, here are the lessons from my first job, which you may resonate with:
- Your first job is not going to be your dream job.
- There are bosses who will use their position for self-interested reasons.
- Not all of your colleagues are your friends.
- You will do things outside your job description.
- You can leave if you are not happy anymore.
Let’s begin.
5 Lessons From First Job After Graduating College
My first job after college was at the university where my mom works as a school principal. She has been the school principal for over 5 years now.
When I graduated from college, I sent many job applications to companies and establishments in the public sector, the legal industry, and the publishing industry.
But no one hired me. Working at the university as an administrative assistant was my last choice. And I got it, thanks to nepotism.
I admit that I was at fault, too, when I couldn’t get a job at the time. I was seeking a position and a company I would be happy with. I was picky.
There were times when once I reached Manila (I applied for jobs in Manila because the minimum wage was higher than in the province), I would get off at the last bus stop only to get on another bus that would take me home.
Basically, I woke up so early to go to Manila so that I could go home. I would lose interest at the last minute. Looking back, I was crazy!
I graduated at 20 years old. I didn’t know what I wanted at that age, but I had an idea of what I didn’t want. And I didn’t want my first job after college.
It was not aligned with my degree or my interests. I was surrounded by fake people. Some superiors enslaved me because I was younger. People were nice to me because my mom was one of the bosses.
One boss abused me for the same reason.
Anyone would assume that I had a good life there because my mom was an administrator at the institution. But I believe I would have had a better experience if she were not. Why?
According to Indeed, nepotism is bad for the company because what if the family member is not skilled? You waste money!
I didn’t know who was genuine. Some people hated me because they thought I received better treatment. I got yelled at. I was asked to buy food and stuff for them as I was the youngest in the office.
The list goes on!
I quit before I could become a regular employee in July of 2018. I just waited for my contract to expire, but I submitted a resignation letter.
I just passed the Civil Service Examination that year, so I planned to work in the government. But it was hard to get a job in the public sector if you didn’t have connections. I had no connections at the national level.
Nepotism is really one of the keys to success. I can’t complain because I benefit from it. But now, I don’t benefit from it career-wise.
So, I learned these lessons from my first job after graduating college. Scroll down!
1. Your first job is not going to be your dream job.
Your first job will most likely not be your dream job.
This shouldn’t be surprising. After graduating from college, you are no one in the professional world. No work experience unless you were a working student.
But even if you were a working student, it is not guaranteed that companies will take it seriously. From their perspective, you are young and incapable.
I was a working student for three semesters in college. I am grateful for the experience, but it didn’t help me land a job. People only cared that I just graduated.
At the time, I wanted to work at a law firm or the government. I have a degree in political science and I took it as a pre-law. Those industries seemed the best.
I applied to some publishing companies, too, as I thought I might be for that industry. Now, I know I am for that industry, but in an unconventional way.
In an article by Idealist, if your educational background is not aligned with the field you want to enter, think about what you learned and find ways you can apply it to that field.
At my first job, I was part of the Medicine department. My bosses were doctors and I dealt with aspiring doctors. It was a school, and I was in the dean’s office.
The school has its hospital. As an administrative assistant in the Medicine department, I had to deal with hospital employees as well.
That was so far from what I had imagined before I graduated from college. I believed I would be a legal assistant or a public servant after college.
I didn’t enjoy it because I just left school, so it felt uncomfortable being in a school again but as an employee. It didn’t feel like a professional setting.
Also, those aspiring doctors were older than me or the same age as me. Medicine is a post-college degree, and some took it many years after they finished college.
It was weird when people older than me called me “ma’am” or similar.
2. There are bosses who will use their position for self-interested reasons.
On my first day at the job, there was a boss who owned me. She wanted me to be her right-hand woman in many cases. No big deal. She was a doctor.
All of my bosses were doctors, but the boss who owned me wasn’t the ultimate boss in the Medicine department. She was not the dean.
ThoughtCo explains that the dean is the one in charge of a college. It has similar responsibilities to a school principal, but to college students.
She knew I was the daughter of the school principal. She had children in the Basic Education department, where my mom was the boss.
So, she became interested in me.
Months passed, and it became apparent that she was power-tripping. Maybe she enjoyed making the school principal’s daughter miserable.
There were times I was glad she didn’t come to work. I actually wished for her not to come to work or to be so busy with her patients so that I wouldn’t deal with her.
3. Not all of your colleagues are your friends.
The third lesson from my first job that I learned is that not all of your colleagues are your friends. Backstabbing in the workplace is common.
My main co-workers were around ten years older than me and had been in that office for over five years at the time, so just imagine how inferior I felt around them.
Outside the office, there were other administrative assistants in other areas of the Medicine department who were fake, talking bad about me behind my back.
According to WebMD, medicine has different branches: surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, human anatomy, biology, and so on. Each branch has its own staff. I was in the dean’s office, which is the tree.
I wouldn’t know what they were talking about because they were doing it secretly, but I could judge based on their implications and behavior that they didn’t like me.
It was mostly because I was the daughter of the school principal. As I was connected by blood to one of the bosses at the institution, they thought I was receiving better treatment.
Or that I was expecting them to treat me better.
I enjoyed spending time with people in other departments outside of Medicine because they didn’t see me as a competition. I liked it when I disseminated files to other offices as I got to talk to them.
I had friends in the registrar’s office, IT office, and human resources department.
4. You will do things outside your job description.
I bought supplies for everyone. My co-workers and I bought food for the bosses almost every day. But not using my or our personal money!
But I had a co-worker who was borrowing money from me, and she even fooled me once that we had to contribute a certain amount for the Christmas party.
But only I contributed. Turns out I contributed money for her bills.
Co-workers borrowing money exist in many offices. Money Crashers has tips on how to refuse lending money to people.
Also, I once washed the dishes in the office. But I did it not because they told me to. The cleaner didn’t want to do it, so I did it voluntarily.
One of the lessons from my first job is that job descriptions will not matter to you. You will do more than expected, your choice or against your will.
You have an inferiority complex. You need the job so badly that you don’t want to upset anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt.
5. You can leave if you are not happy anymore.
The very reason why I quit that job was that I was not happy anymore. It was not the job I wished for. I was abused. I wanted professional growth.
I also wanted to be in a place where my mom wasn’t because I didn’t want to be known as my mom’s daughter forever.
I wanted to create my own name in the industry that aligns with my heart, and be known for what I do.
My mom was a helicopter parent, but not because she wanted control over me.
She worked as an educator at the schools I attended from pre-school through college, and then my first job was at her workplace; it was the last resort.
Verywell Family says a helicopter parent is very involved in their child’s life.
Our lives were so tied together, and it was not forced. We just needed to walk the same path. Hers was just more elevated.
But I needed to have my own identity, so I left her workplace.
Initially, when I submitted my resignation letter, my plan was to be in the public sector because I just passed the Civil Service Examination at that time.
And then once I get a job, I would save up money and enroll in a law school.
But I couldn’t get a job once again, and that was despite my work experience and the fact that I was eligible for a government job. I was professionally unlucky.
But I learned that, sometimes, something doesn’t work out because it is not for you.
I couldn’t get a job in the government and the law industry because I needed to be a writer: as a profession and a vocation.
Last Words
Since I quit my first job after college, I have been working with foreign people as an SEO professional and building personal projects.
You can read my blog post about what I learned from getting fired from work if you want to know what happened after I resigned from my first job.
What lessons from my first job were you able to relate to?
If you enjoyed reading these lessons from my first job, here is a video of me talking about my life as a fresh college graduate, and it was hard:
