Mind Your Decisions

10 Things about the Working World I Wish I Knew in College

source: J.T.Py0cursor via flickr

Let’s face it—each new stage in life brings dramatic changes that are difficult to anticipate. No matter how smart you can be in college, you will still get surprised by the working world.

I faced these surprises myself. I thought the working world would be hard since it lacked the freedom I had at Stanford. I was wrong. During my first job, I had much more free time than during college in part because I didn’t have to study on weekends.

I encountered many other surprises along the way. In the spirit of guiding others, here are the top 10 things I learned while working:

1. You have money now–people will listen to you

I learned this lesson early. While still in college, my friends and I had trekked up to San Francisco to look for apartments. We scheduled to meet an agent to show us a few appealing listings. But when we arrived, there was no agent. She flaked on us.

We dug up the contact number and soon the agent was casually apologizing, saying she got caught up in something. It was then my friend suspected the excuse was fishy. And then it hit him: we had sent our inquiry from a college “.edu” email account. This agent likely thought we were poor graduate students and not worth her time.

My friend said we were disappointed because we were serious renters. And then he mentioned our combined income (for three consultants).

She quickly freed up and gave us first-class treatment.

2. Problem is, now that you have money, you’re expected to spend it

Apartments can get expensive for reasons other than rent. Basic furniture can set you back thousands, and then there’s the matter of decorating. Most of us got by in college with a few simple posters and second-hand furniture. But now that you’re working, you’re expected to live a better lifestyle.

You’ll see people buy into this notion and spend unnecessarily. My friend admitted that he threw away all of his college posters. When I asked him why, he said “I’ve got money now and I’m supposed to use it.” Oh and use it he did. He bought framed artwork costing $100 per piece.

Oh, and there are other subtle ways you’ll be expected to spend more, on things like clothes, gifts, or anything where fashion matters.

This is one area where it pays to be eccentric, or so I felt. I had minimalist furnishings, avoided fashion, and bought as many furnishings second hand as I could. One of the best deals I had was going to an estate sale where my roommates and I got a third of our kitchen cookware for $20. Garage sales and moving sales were also useful.

Of course, if you do choose a frugal lifestyle, be aware many people will keep applying the pressure to spend more. That’s what surprised me the most. Why would anyone care how I decorate my room? But people do.

3. You’re on a team–you don’t need to compete for grades

In college, course success was usually measured by beating the curve. Professors often forced a distribution of grades, meaning even very high marks could be a B grade if everyone happened to do better.

This is why the working world can be liberating. Work projects were like being on a great team in a school project, with even fewer slackers. People helped you in times of need, and often projects were split across different offices.

It reminded me about my seventh grade science class. He was an amazing teacher, and one time asked us what companies value the most. This had nothing to do with science, but he was willing to spend time telling us this. We spent a whole class discussing ideas, proposing things like initiative and intelligence. Just before the bell rang he told us the answer was “team work.” None of us believed him then, but looking back, I would say he is 100 percent correct.

4. You need to earn trust, perhaps by doing some mindless tasks

During my first project, I was manually entering data into a spreadsheet. Part of me was curious why my company wanted a college graduate to do this. The other part of me was happy I was getting paid like a consultant for doing the work of a temp.

I eventually got frustrated and asked my mentor why I was doing such menial work. I reminded him I had a brain. He laughed it off and gave a telling answer. I was doing this easy work to gain trust.

“You see, Presh, we’re dealing with some big clients. The company knows you are smart, but they don’t know how well you do work. We are not going to give you important work right off the bat and risk the company reputation. You have to prove you can do simple things well before you get a chance to do the complicated stuff.”

This is an obvious idea but it never struck me coming from a college background. I didn’t need to earn Professors’ trust to teach a class or do research. I just told them my grade from real analysis or game theory. That was proof enough.

But when money is on the line, it is work experience, not intelligence and potential that matter. Try to keep the introductory tasks in perspective.

5. Hours in the office may be worse than hours in the library

This is a personal observation, but I had a tougher time working 10 hours than spending 10 hours in the library. Some of my friends also agree they worked longer in school than they could on the job. We wondered if it was because our sleep requirement increased as we got older.

I don’t think that’s the case. I think there is a simpler answer: office work can be more stressful. Work projects have so many moving parts and client deadlines. People can literally be waiting on the piece you are completing.

This is much different than studying in a library where all that mattered was an individual choice. I always had a choice to abandon studying and leave. It was that feeling of freedom that relaxed me and helped me study longer.

6. People will actually review your work

In high school, my history teacher made us write a 15 page paper. She emphasized that it had to be 15 pages. Even if we were as terse as Hemingway, we had to write 15 pages. If we didn’t, she would fail us. No questions or appeals.

I heard about someone that had trouble with this requirement. The night before the paper was due, he only had 14 pages. He didn’t have time to research any more, and he had used all the filler material he could think up.

While he turned in 14 pages of paper, he amazing did not fail due to trickery. He estimated the teacher would be too busy reading papers to do more than skim and check the final page number for a “15.”

So he made sure his last page was 15 by skipping a page number during the pagination (I think there was no page 8). The teacher never noticed, and he got a B grade.

I share this story reluctantly because I don’t encourage this behavior. Cheaters should be failed and he got lucky to avoid punishment.

The point is how the teacher made a big deal about page count but then didn’t actually follow through on reviewing it.

In the business world, if things really count, people check your work and formatting. And you don’t want to deceive them, since you are all on the same team.

If something doesn’t look right, you won’t be failed. You’ll simply be asked to fix it.

7. Office location can make a big difference

Looking back, I went to college with only superficial information. I had toured the outside of the campus. But there are some big things I skipped. I didn’t check out dorms. I never stepped inside a classroom or library. And I didn’t even meet any students. Looking back, I can’t realize I made a decision that affected years of my life without actually seeing how that life might be like.

I was about to make the same mistake when interviewing for jobs. For some companies, I indicated several office preferences to broaden my search. For one particular company, I ended up interviewing at two of their locations.

I wondered why I had to actually go to two offices for the same company. Wasn’t the job more or less the same?

Looking back, I can’t believe that’s what I thought. Of course offices matter. The projects can be different. The people are different. The nearby eateries are different.

Before committing to a job, find out some basics. See where your desk might be and get a sample of the life you’ll be living.

8. Coffee shops and happy hours may be as important as meeting rooms

College is almost always social, even in a library. It’s not so much in an office.

People act differently inside their office than they do outside the building. Perhaps it’s because they are worried about political correctness.

I don’t drink coffee or tea as a habit, but I made a point to join peers when making trips to coffee stores. I didn’t buy anything; I just gave them company. I learned a lot of personal things during that time, and it was a nice exercise break as well.

Happy hour also contains a different social element. It is a good time to talk to the people who are too busy when in their office. What other time can you talk to a partner about his first job of being a cab driver 30 years ago?

Remember that work is not just about product. It’s also about being around people you like and building a network of people you know personally.

9. A good project can be as useful as a college class

I thought learning would stop after I left college, and I was glad to see this doesn’t have to be the case.

Now business learning is not the same as academic learning. I can’t say that I would be able to answer questions about all the intricacies of what I learned.

The advantage is that business learning is by nature designed to be directly applicable. If a project calls for exchange rate projections, you won’t necessarily learn all the intricacies of exchange rate parity. But you will learn how traders price exchange rates, which is more practical.

An example: after my first project I visited my friends from school and they asked me what I learned. I told them about how power gets delivered to their house and how the government analyzes competitive concerns with energy mergers and acquisitions.

Now my electrical engineering friend asked me a bunch of questions I couldn’t answer, but he was nevertheless impressed with what I’d learned while “on the job.”

10. It’s still the small things that count

You knew this during college and probably even earlier in your life. It’s not the grades you get, or the activities you do, but it’s the small things that count.

Even though you’ll be making a decent salary, living in a well-furnished apartment, working on a team, and learning a lot, enjoying your job isn’t necessarily about these big things.

It’s about the small joys. For me, that meant playing Nerf basketball during an afternoon break, or preparing a nice meal in the break room, or relaxing with friends and family after a long night.

The fact is that the real joys in life will more or less be the same in the working world. That is something you can be ready for.

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