Glanced At The Envelope To Anxious And Nervous To Open It Right Away

YOU`VE GOT YOUR DEGREE – NOW WHAT

PART I

INSIDE THE REAL WORLD OF WORK

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams

And endeavours to live the life he has imagined,

He will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

If you have built castles in the air, your dreams need not be lost

Now put the foundations under them!

- Henry David Thoreau

Chapter 1

My First Job

May 2005 – Kingston, Jamaica

2:３７ｐｍ。 I glanced at the envelope, too anxious and nervous to open it right away. All I could think was that finally a company had responded to one of the many applications I had mailed. Curiosity got the better of me though、and within seconds I ripped open the envelope. The contents confirmed what I had feared. It was the usual rejection letter, sorry, we do not have any vacancies but wish you success in your search for employment. The human mind being what it is, went back momentarily down memory lane to a similar situation some years ago. Some fifteen (15) years ago to be exact.

March 1990

My first step into the suit jungle (workplace)

I started this journey like everybody else. A young graduate fresh out of business college seeking a job. (business colleges were all the rage then). Not just any job mind you, but the job you saw on television that gave the young graduate limitless opportunities to make his mark on the world while climbing the corporate ladder. In my naivety, I actually believed this stuff. I was nineteen. What did I know? I was still wet behind the ears, I had no idea what the real world was like.

My knowledge of the world of work was a mixture of youthful reverie combined with what you watched on TV. They didn`t tell you in school or home otherwise. Had I been better prepared, maybe things might have turned out differently. Who knows? Little did I expect that the road would have been so difficult, bumpy and unpredicatable. To coin a phrase, if I knew then what I know now, I would have been better informed and prepared, I would have done things differently. But alas, let`s not waste any more time. Come with me reader as I draw the curtains of my mind and go back in time.

It was March 1990, I had just completed my diploma course at a prominent business college, having gone straight from high school. I was excited to begin working. My mother had laboured long and hard to support and care for my brother and I. Moreover, she was not keeping good health and was already on early retirement. I wanted to do my part and ease some of the financial burden off of her. My father too was already retired and he was over 60 by then. My mother being the smart lady that she was came up with the brilliant idea that in addition to the diploma I needed to do a computer course. She figured that being computer literate would make me more marketable. She was a firm believer in education and always stressed the importance of it. I agreed.

I spent another 2 months doing an introductory course in computing. After that, it was off to the world of work. But wait, I needed to first get a job. Right? I sent out applications, and send out I did! Not only did I not get a single call to attend an interview, but, I got no response from the many applications that I had posted.

This happened for some months and then in September 1990, I received a letter from a communications company thanking me for my interest in their company but that unfortunately I had no experience. And so was the tenor of the feedbacks from the few companies that responded to my application.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was crushed! To top it all, I became very disheartened and depressed. How on earth was I going to get work experience if no one wanted to hire me! After all, I couldn`t give myself work experience. Someone has to be willing to give the young graduate a chance. Anyway, I never gave up (this is an important concept that I will elaborate on more in the later chapters), I continued sending out applications, and still nothing.

To cut it short, I finally got a job in November 1990. And no. It was a not a job that was a result of the many applications I sent out, but one that was received based on a friend of mine from high school, who had a sister who knew someone that wanted a personal assistant. I am sure you have heard of situations like those. You have a friend, who knows a friend, who knows a friend? Yeah. Well reader, I thought my troubles had come to an end. But this was just the beginning. I went to the company determined to do my best and help my mother out financially.

I must pause her to mention the most important person in my life – my mother. You see my mother was diabetic and very sickly. She spent as much time in hospital as she did out of it. She worked hard and pushed herself, even against doctors` orders to provide for my brother and I so that we would not be in want. And we were never in want. At least not while she was alive.

Despite her illness, she pressed on and everyone wondered how she did it. She had to work with her feet on a stool to aid her blood circulation. Would you believe me reader if I told you that there was no other worker in that company as hardworking as my mother! She made such an impression with Management that when the Board wanted to terminate her services because of her frequent absences from work due to illness, Management opposed the recommendation and justified her continuing working there on the basis that despite her obvious limitations, she was the best worker that they had. My mother is my hero and she was very special, but let me not digress from the story.

As I said before, I was working hard in my new job doing my best. There was just one problem. My supervisor didn`t like me and would often pick on me. She was slim built woman in her mid to late twenties. She had an irritating laugh and the best way to describe it would be to think of a hen cackling. I would describe her as being quite silly, really. She is what one would call a simpleton and I often wondered how she ever get the job? (Coincidentally her first name rhymed with silly). I would oftentimes laugh and say that the name is quite fitting.

Her unfair treatment of me was obvious at the office and people commented on it. They would say just ignore her. That was easier said than done. I only knew that I could do nothing to please her. My time of arrival at work, how long I took for lunch and my assisting the agents in preparing proposals for clients seemed to be her main purpose in life. I was miserable and often thought of resigning. You may say that I am exaggerating and that I am not being truthful. That there is something that I am not telling you. To give you an idea of what I experienced I will recall two specific scenarios.

The first one had to do with being absent from work one day due to illness. On my return to work the next day she was seething mad, I was informed how the office was in chaos as there was no one who knew how to run the proposals for the agents, and everyone was asking for me.

Reader, would you believe that my supervisor summoned me to her office told me off about being absent from work (as if it was my fault that I got sick) and told me to ensure that I teach all the staff how to run proposals and that, what were her exact words, yes, she said no one is indispensable. There were no words that she was glad to see me back at work or that I had an important skill that was useful to the organization. Reader, I am not unreasonable and don’t`t believe for one minute that I would want the office operations to suffer because I am not there. The work must go on. But the tone of her voice and the manner in which she sneered that I am not indispensable and commanded me to teach the other members of staff, I will never forget.

Another incident had to do with me working late on Friday nights to complete a production report. This report was based on the number of applications submitted by each agent and unit. In addition, to the weekly report, there was also a month-to-date and a year-to date component that also had to be done. Because I was a Seventh Day Adventist, I was unable to work late on Friday nights to complete the report, therefore I had come in on Sundays to do it. I would spent about 2 to 2 1/2 hours to compete it. However, I was never paid for these overtime hours. My supervisor said that I would have to work for at least 4 hours to claim overtime. I was not going to lie and cook the figures to say that I took four hours to complete the report, because I did it in less. I basically worked 2 years of overtime without pay and without complaining. My supervisor knew about this and did nothing to see that I was compensated.

Ironically, you think that this would have made her soften. When appraisal time came around she gave me low marks in every category and said that I was not doing any work. I disagreed with her appraisal and refused to sign the form. The matter was reported to the Branch Manager, and God bless him because he was a good man. He met with both of us, heard both sides of the story and told me that he knew I was a hard worker and that he summed it up to be a clash of personalities. He advised us to try and get along, and that in situations like this, management would always support the worker with the seniority.

In later years I have become convinced that the traditional appraisal system that companies use is far too subjective. The employee who is not liked by his/her boss/supervisor will never get a good appraisal, no matter how good a worker he/she is. I am of the view that to make appraisals more objective, a third party, nominated by the employee be asked to sit it on the appraisal. Another view I have is that the employee, boss/supervisor and nominee selected by the employee each completes an appraisal and the average of the three scores be accepted as the appraisal score. There are many employees who have been left up to the mercy of a boss/supervisor an receive an unjust appraisal, with no real course of action and it is time for it to stop.

If you are a believer in God you know the verse that says no weapon that is formed against you will prosper and that vengeance is mine I will repay. Well God did repay me and big time. Three branches shared the premises at 8-10 Eureka Road and I am of the belief that you should always help others and so I did. It so happened that one of the branches that shared the premises had an awards ceremony to which the other branches were invited. Guess who got an award? Me! And hear this for hardwork!

Isn`t it ironic, that it took another branch to which I was not employed to recognize and reward my hard work. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the Managers and staff of my branch when I went up to collect the award! Of course I was shocked, because I did not know that I would be getting an award. It was a total surprise. But God has a way of rewarding us, if we will just be patient and allow Him to work out things for us.

To cut a long story short I spent a couple of years there and then resigned as things did not get better but actually got worse. However, I must mention that I made friends with a co-worker by the name of Ruth and she is one of my good friends to this day. I resigned in July 1993. Spent the summer in Canada with my aunt who is my second mother, Aunt Sheila and then returned to Jamaica.

Tired and dejected of the workplace at the age of 21, and after only my first job, I decided to try something new. My friend encouraged me to do temping jobs with her. She had been doping temping jobs for a number of years and liked it. She recommended me to try it. She signed up with an employment agency who placed her in various temporary positions with different firms. The pay was good and she was never bored as she didn`t stay long enough at any one company to become bored. This seemed like the ideal situation for me at the time and I decided to try it out. And I did, for a number of years.

Chapter 2

Temporary Jobs

September 1993

On my return from summer vacation overseas, I signed up with a couple of employment agencies. I was on my quest to obtain the `perfect` job and figured that I would find it through the help of an employment agency. I quickly got a temporary job at a communications company doing data entry. This lasted for about 3 months. I was then placed at an insurance company where I stayed for another couple of months. My next job was at another insurance company where I spent six (6) months.

I continued my temping jobs. This was how I met one of my best friends, Beverley. She was my supervisor at one of the companies where I worked. But she was so unlike my previous supervisor at my first job that I liked here right away. She was kind, thoughtful, considerate and very down to earth. We soon became good friends. I learnt a lot at this company. This was where I learnt about family businesses. This was were I received and witnessed first hand what people term as power struggle, and office politics.

There was a Director of Finance whose who I`ll call Mr X. The newly employed Chief Accountant and the Director of Administration did every thing they could to make him look incompetent. It was rumoured that the Chief Accountant wanted the post of Director of Finance. They plotted and schemed until they got their wish. The company eventually fired the Director of Finance him saying that he couln`t manage his job. It is important as a young graduate that you are made aware of office politics and power struggle as you will undoubtedly come across it in your working life. The workers were all sorry for him as we all knew about the workings of the other managers. All this was a real eye opener for me as I had never yet encountered anything like this.