Job Syllabus

“MOMMA I MADE IT”, I exclaimed to my mother as I was driving to headquarters for orientation on that Sunday summer evening. All of my hard work at college had finally come to full fruition.  I earned my degree in industrial engineering and had my first job lined up before I walked across the graduation stage. I was ecstatic to finally realize my dream of living life on auto-pilot. You know, after finishing everything on the “steps to be successful checklist”, right? I had high expectations for a neatly planned life for myself but to my surprise my package deal wasn’t wrapped neatly with a bow on top. 

As an engineer who loves structure and predictability coming out of a very rigidly structured world of academia, this transition was really tough for me. I struggled knowing where to start after my assigned duties were to “go and learn”. How do I go and learn with no textbook, no syllabus, not scheduled exam dates? How would I ever be able to plan my schedule around “go and learn”???

I recognized that feeling not knowing what I didn’t know, and it was like having a bad teacher all over again. My frustrations arose because I thought I was past this. I thought the days of go and figure it out were over, but it seems like they were just beginning.

It was a frustrating few weeks, but I was certain playing the blame game wouldn’t be a winning strategy. Instead of pointing out the defects in the system that everyone was already aware of, the omission of my on-boarding syllabus left me an opulent opportunity of exhibiting my value. 

Obviously, I was a valuable asset since I was hired.  But even after 12 weeks of experience from an internship, I realized I was still seen as wildcard. No one really knew what to expect from me. Thus, an opportunity for me to exhibit my skills was born.

Often times when looking at job descriptions, you might notice a bullet point that says, “able to deal with ambiguity varying circumstances.”  Trust me, those bullet points are there for a reason. Managers don’t waste the time to say things unnecessarily. This tiny bit of knowledge allowed me to showcase my value as a self-starting problem solver.

Problem: I don’t know where I should start observations of the process Solution: Create syllabus of the different segments of the process.

I was no expert on the content but knowing that I thrived in a structured environment, I engineered a process to give me direction on my duty of “go and learn.” After my manager asked what I was working on, and I pulled out my syllabus, he was impressed and I soon saw more projects coming my way. 

As an engineer, I don’t get disgruntled about problems any more. All these problems are just a sign of job security and show casing my worth. I hope you can see that too. 

Until next time....

Keep going towards greatness!

#lifelessons #growing #career