What I learned from my first year of work.

Last updated on February 14th, 2024 at 02:26 am

So… here’s what I learned from my first year of work. January 23rd, 2024 marked my first completed year in the workforce. Looking back over the previous year, it went by so fast it almost seems blurry. I’ve done a lot of things, both in this job and in life in general. I learned to budget. I’ve been able to do some interpersonal counseling. There have been times when the Lord said no and times when He said yes. He’s allowed me to experience some great successes on the job, and a few big fails. I simultaneously feel like my time couldn’t have gone by any faster and there’s no way it could’ve dragged through any slower. Try to wrap your head around that one. I haven’t been able to quite yet. You see, I feel like I’ve excelled in a few areas, and, in that regard, time is flying. I’m learning and growing and moving forward on an upward trajectory. Then, the flip side of that coin is the feeling of incompetency that sometimes claws it’s way out of the recesses of my mind. It reveals itself in those moments when something is crashing or breaking and people are relying on me to fix it. When that paralyzing feeling emerges, I feel as if I’ve been stuck on Level 1, unable to move past a basic level of confidence, comfort, and control of my current career path. Ugh. I hate that feeling with a fervor.

This past year has been anything but ordinary for someone of my pedigree and background. As I will continue to testify, it had to be of the Lord that I ended up with this career opportunity. I was placed in a position that wouldn’t normally be considered entry-level. I was placed inside of a team that is (for the most part) laid-back, patient, and helpful. I was given a degree of freedom most college grads could only dream of having this early in their careers. I was assigned to support an operational team that, for all intents and purposes, believed me to be a computer wizard who could do anything, which always feels good (except in those instances where they want me to figure out the impossible). In these aspects, my first year on the job has been wonderful.

On the flip side of that, the amount of work has seemed somewhat insurmountable at times. It never ends. The nature of the beast in manufacturing is that something will always break. In a 24/7 mill operation, bolts will break, servers will fail, and issues will arise as wear and tear increases on the various machines. Being in a maintenance capacity, I’ve had plenty of midnight calls to fix things, coming in early to fix things, and staying late to fix things. As time passes, I’ve learned to identify my key pain points and work with other team members to build tools to solve these issues (more on that later) but the process of learning and growing is still very much ongoing.

As I reflected on the past year, I pulled out some key points that I wish I had known before I started. You know what they say… hindsight is always 20/20. So, if I was fresh out of school, and I had to start all over again, here’s what I would have wanted to know. And, believe me, the following is applicable to any new job, not just for those where you’re fresh out of your educational career 😄.

Learn to learn

I was so worried when I started that I was going to fail on account of not knowing enough. I just knew I was going to screw something up because I didn’t know the correct database, the correct server, or the correct deployment method.

And, sure enough, I did.

I remember a metallurgist came into my office one morning at about 6:10 AM, ready to spit fire. I had deployed a change to a quality service the night prior before I had left work. The code had a bug in it that caused every single coil of steel to be auto-held for met review. Operators had been calling him all night, worried that they weren’t going to get paid because all of the steel the line was producing was being flagged as subpar. Only having been in the role a month or so, I had not learned about proper deployment practices, nor had I alerted the mets or the operators to the change I had made. As a result, this met had barely gotten any sleep the night before, and an entire crew of operators were angry, thinking their paycheck was going to be affected. Needless to say, I was mortified.

Another time, I published a new version of a roll-downloader service for our roll shop. This service was integral to mill operations because if the metrics it recorded for the rolls were wrong, and we then downloaded that invalid data to the mill stand controllers, the models would make errant calculations and the mill would wreck, leading to hours of lost profits and cleanup by operations and mechanical teammates. Remember when I said it wasn’t normal for someone of my pedigree to have this job? Yep. HUGE responsibility with potentially disastrous consequences. After all, if you take a sheet of steel flying through a mill at 2000 feet per minute and it gets off track, that steel is going to break something in a BIG way. We’re talking thousands of dollars lost in a matter of seconds.

The service had a bug in it. Thankfully, the bug didn’t corrupt the roll metric data. Rather, it simply needlessly duplicated the correct data hundreds of times in our production databases. Essentially, I corrupted the database with a bunch of useless extra entries, which made all the web pages displaying that data look like they were broken. I didn’t understand SQL syntax and the flow of the program enough, and I hadn’t properly monitored the database after I deployed the change. I had to get the help of another engineer to clean up the database. Once again, I was mortified.

Sam, did you curl up in a ball and hide from the world after those displays of utter incompetence?

No. I learned from them.

Now, I monitor my changes after they are deployed. I always have fallback plans in place in case the code doesn’t behave as expected. I take backups of servers, services, and databases before I make changes. I learned. It would have been really easy to get defensive when I was confronted with my mistakes. I could’ve yelled back at the people yelling at me, smarted off, and stood my ground that they couldn’t blame a new guy like me for tripping up. I could have burned some bridges with individuals before I ever built them, but I didn’t. I learned.

In whatever role you are in, roll with the punches. Lean into the blows. Take them head-on. Allow yourself, for a moment, to feel the disappointment, anger, embarrassment, and whatever else emotion comes up. Accept it, then seek to learn from it. The embarrassment of those two instances were motivators for me to perform better in the future, not a hindrance that kept me from getting back up and trying again. Always seek to learn. Don’t let the negativity you feel or that others feel towards you keep you from getting up and giving it your best shot again.

Learn to balance

I’m still learning this one. I haven’t cracked it quite yet, but I’m hoping in 2024 I’ll do better than I did in 2023. I’d say averaged 57+ hours every week at work in 2023. There was always something to do. Whether I was staying late to work on outage items, or getting up at midnight to answer a work call, or coming in early to confer with people at night-shift, work just sucked me in.

I will tell you off the rip that I have a certain level of perfectionist OCD in my life. I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist outright, but there are certain parts of my life, like my career, where OCD tendencies shine through in a big way. To be proud of my work, I have to see ALL my work as my BEST work. As you can probably tell, when you’re learning a new job, it’s hard for the work to be good quality. I’d look at my more experienced peers, compare my work to theirs, and then berate myself for not being as good. My websites weren’t as fast. My data collection programs weren’t as streamlined. My communication services randomly crashed. What was my solution? More hours. If I could just fix it all, then my stuff would be just as good as theirs. I would be just as good as them. The extra hours allowed me to make progress towards these goals, so I sunk the extra hours into it.

I’ve always been one to sink time into things. The great scam of my life is the fact that people think I’m intelligent. The minute I tell people I graduated high school at 16 top of my class, then college at 19, top of my class, with a BS in Comp Sci and a minor in Math, they automatically think I’m some sort of brain-child.

Not the case at all.

I may have graduated high school and college early, but I put in the same amount of hours as those going the standard track. Naturally smart people just get it. I don’t. During my educational career, I spent countless hours outside of class studying and preparing. I’d hole myself up in the library, or an empty lab, with books and flashcards and coffee. I went to office hours for various professors almost every day. I was relentless. I gave up on many of the social aspects of life, both in high school and college, to pursue the path I decided to go. This past year of working a real job has shown me that I haven’t grown out of that tendency in the slightest.

The only problem is, now I have the added attractor of getting paid for the extra hours. It’s no longer just about keeping pace with my peers. It’s also about dollars. It’s addictive. My current schedule would not be conducive to being a good husband or a good father. I understand this, and, if I could go back, I would try harder to cap myself a bit more. The beauty of working is that, in most jobs, once you’re done for the day you’re done. You don’t have to go home and study. You don’t have to worry about new subjects, new topics, or new teachers. Once you gain a level of comfort with your career, and gain an understanding that a job is simply a means to an end, your life begins to open up a bit more.

A job gives you the funds you need to do the things that actually matter in life. It allows you to provide for your family. It allows you to help those in need. It allows you to put a roof over your head and clothes on your back. It allows you to take road trips with friends, or go on date nights with your significant other. If you’re at work the whole time, working to make all the money, then you’ll quickly find that you don’t have any time to spend it on the things that actually matter.

I went through a period of time this past year where my life consisted of waking up 5:30am, being at work by 6am, then not being back home from work until 7pm. Weekends were spent sleeping, trying to get ready for the breakneck pace of the following work week. I felt like it was all I could do to get up and go to church on Sunday. It was terrible and draining. I didn’t have the proper perspective of what a job is for, so I didn’t balance it at all.

As I said earlier, I’m still learning how to do this balancing thing. Even though I now have learned what a job is ultimately for, I haven’t really gotten to the point where I have those other things to invest my time in. I’m living 2 hours from my family, I haven’t found that friend group to road trip with, and I haven’t found that girl to spoil, so I work to pass the time. I have made it a point to get more involved with the church I’m at. I’m doing visitation with the pastor every couple of weekends, trying to reach out to those who are hurting and lonely. I’m preaching in different churches as the Lord allows. I’m blogging more. I have more balance than I did 6 months ago, but this is something I’m continuing to strive towards. When the Lord brings the people into my life, I’ll further lean into it.

Learn to talk.

Speaking of the Lord bringing people into your life, it’s about time we learn to leave our comfort zone. Seems like us younger generations don’t fully grasp the concept of socialization. We were raised staring at various screens, and, as such, we’ve gotten comfortable with using them as social crutches. I caught myself doing this the other night when was out at the Codfather getting some fish and chips. There I am, sitting among all those people also waiting on their food, and I’ve got my nose stuck in my phone looking at dumb news updates on X. What do I gain from knowing that the DOJ thinks President Biden is too feeble and senile to stand trial, but not too feeble and senile to be the Commander and Chief of the Free World? I gain absolutely nothing at all from that. It is simply something to do to keep me from the awkwardness of interacting with strangers.

Now, it’s not as big of a deal when you’re just waiting a couple of minutes for some piping hot fish and chips. However, when you get into a new job, there’s going to be a temptation to do the same thing when you have breaks. The only difference is, that you’re probably going to be interacting with your coworkers a bit more than I interacted with the nice lady sitting next to me in the Codfather to-go line. As such, you need to get out of that comfort zone. Make it a point to talk.

And not just about work-related things either. I know a guy whose sole interaction with certain members of my team is, as he says, “discussing business logic”. Needless to say, he hasn’t garnered any goodwill, additional trust, or camaraderie with those particular teammates, because all he talks about is strictly business. We have to remember that, at our essence, humans are social creatures. We thrive on interaction. That’s why social media is so big. That’s why celebrity culture is so big. We flock to attention and praise, whether we lavish it on others, or enjoy having it lavished on ourselves.

If I had a do-over, I would have made it a point to start establishing that baseline camaraderie and trust sooner. Since I’ve garnered it, it has made certain aspects of my job MUCH smoother. After all, it’s easier to communicate with someone and get things accomplished if they enjoy talking to you and listening to you. Plus, you get to learn from others’ experiences, and better appreciate who they are as people, which is always really neat to see.

So how do you do it?

You can’t just hop in and ask someone their life story. Most people are going to clam. It’s a process you have to go through. I’ll probably write something more in-depth on this at some point, but the gist is as follows.

First, you get them to solve a problem or provide clarification. Unfortunately for me, most of the time, I was asking for help with a problem, because I had NO IDEA what I was doing. So, I got out of my comfort zone and asked for help. Off the rip, when you do this, you put yourself in a position of submission. You are admitting that you don’t know and that you are seeking an answer from someone more knowledgeable. It’s hard to give off an air of arrogance or pride when you’re genuinely asking for someone to teach you something.

Now, when you do this, it’s important you come up with your thoughts and attempted solutions before you ask. Never ask someone to do something for nothing. You have to show that you’ve put in some level of effort, lest you give the perception of being unmotivated and lazy. A proper way to go about this (assuming the person who you’re asking help from is named Carson) would be to say something like…

Hey Carson, I was wondering if I could pick your brain about X. After looking at it for a bit, I figured I’d try Y or Z to fix it, but I wanted to touch base with someone a bit more familiar with this than me. Can you provide any insight or clarification I may have missed?

See? You have a problem. You’re admitting you don’t know as much as Carson does. This makes Carson feel valued and important. You’re asking for help, but showing that you’ve already put some elbow grease into it and aren’t just looking for Carson to bail you out and do your work for you. If Carson isn’t a genuinely unpleasant person who thrives on the hate and anguish of his fellow humanity, he’s going to help you. You get a solution and he gets the good feeling that comes with pulling someone up rather than tearing them down. Boom. Win-win. And… there’s your open door.

You can do this a few times and pretty soon Carson is going to know that you’re a genuine dude just trying to do a good job. Then, you can start shifting the conversations away from work. If Carson is a man of good moral fibre, you can ask him for relationship advice. If Carson has a nice Chevy truck you can ask why he got brainwashed into buying a piece of junk instead of a Ford 😉. If Carson is a Clemson fan, say something off-the-wall like Deshaun Watson was WAY BETTER than Trevor Lawrence and get him riled up a bit. If Carson has a wedding ring on, and it’s getting near some holiday like Valentine’s or Christmas, ask him what he’s surprising his ol’ lady with. The options are endless.

Doing this allows you to get to know Carson for who he really is, rather than just a fellow clock-puncher you interact with daily. This process never really ends. People take a long time to unravel and figure out. We’re unique like that, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But, if over time, you manage to bring a smile to Carson’s face, or maybe help him solve a problem he’s having, or give him an avenue to vent, or someone to celebrate something with, then you’re going to find you feel much more fulfilled in your career than if you spent all your free moments at work by yourself in silence.

Learn to schedule-segment™

Such a cool phrase. I’m gonna trademark it. If you have a job like mine, or you run on a lean operational team, you may find yourself overwhelmed and under the gun a lot. One of the coolest parts about my job is how varied it is. There is always something new to learn or some new problem to solve. This keeps work fresh and helps the time go by quicker, but it’s not fun when those “new” problems that need to be solved all pop up at the same time. Then, my time blocks go into play.

I took Covey’s class on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and thoroughly enjoyed it. One particular principle that I’ve sought to incorporate into my workflow (with slight modifications) is the 4 Quadrants you see above.

When everything is working as it should, most of my job is in Quadrant II, which is the best quadrant. But, during maintenance outage season and around the time of particular upgrades, my work often devolves into a combination of Quadrant I and III. The way I’ve learned to handle this is time blocking. I set a timer and I solely devote myself to the issue at hand. The only thing I allow to distract me is if I get a work phone call (which usually implies something pressing). Other than that, I’m locked in in monk mode until that timer finishes. Then, I make the decision (depending on the urgency of the task) whether to devote the next time block to it or swap to a task in a different quadrant for a breather. As I’m writing this article at 9 pm, my work phone has begun ringing. How ironic…

…

Alright. It’s been 15 minutes and I’m back. Thankfully it wasn’t anything huge. Quadrant 1, but I knew how to fix it with relative ease. Back to schedule-segments™.

When I first got started, I’d sink a whole day into a problem. I just couldn’t let go of it. At the end of the day, stuff would technically have been accomplished, but it wouldn’t be visible. I would have spent the entire day helping one person when I had seven asking me for different things. I had to learn how to juggle. The beauty of schedule-segments™ is that they take Covey’s 4 Quadrants and apply the principles of Parkinson’s Law.

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. When people have a time constraint, they tend to focus more, prioritize tasks, and become more efficient in completing their work. It suggests that setting deadlines or time constraints can enhance productivity by preventing unnecessary procrastination and encouraging individuals to concentrate on essential tasks. In essence, having a limited timeframe prompts individuals to allocate their time wisely and concentrate on the most critical aspects of their work, leading to more effective and efficient outcomes.

I’m not too crazy about deadlines when others impose them on me, but they’re okay when I impose them on myself. It’s a mental thing I guess. So if I lock myself into those self-imposed time constraints and still hit multiple quadrants of work throughout my daily schedule, then I’m able to touch base with more people and get effective work done. I handle a couple of pestering emails. I get to do some deep work. I engage in some water cooler chit-chat. It all works out. Now, there are the rare days when schedule-segments™ don’t work, but that’s usually due to infrequent freak circumstances, like when a critical computer program that’s run fine since 1997 suddenly doesn’t work properly anymore.

Learn to watch

Lastly, learn to watch. People are funny creatures. Watch what they do. Everyone has tells. They have quirks, movements, or patterns that tell when they’re getting stressed, angry, sad, or any other of the litany of possible emotions. Where people mess up early on in jobs is that they don’t pick up on coworkers’ tells. You have to watch them carefully. Back to the example of Carson…

Let’s say ya’ll are both sitting in a meeting with a supervisor and he’s reaming ya’ll out for doing substandard work and following improper procedure. You glance over at Carson and see he’s massaging his palm with his thumb in his lap. Make a mental note of it.

Then, two weeks later, let’s say you and Carson are working overtime to get a project completed before its deadline. You hit a roadblock that stalls progress, and as you both sit there discussing potential solutions, you notice he’s massaging his palm with his thumb again. Make a mental note of it.

A week passes and y’all successfully complete the project before the due date. Now, you have to give a presentation to the higher-ups. There you are… prepping with your ol’ buddy Carson. There he is… massaging his palm. Make a mental note of it.

Once is by chance. Two times is a coincidence. Three times is a tell.

Sam (adapting from Ian Fleming)

Three times, and you’ve got a tell. Carson massages his palm when he gets stressed out. Why is this useful? If you know the tell, you can take the heat off of him when the boss is reaming y’all out, garnering his thanks and trust. If you know the tell, you can call a “take-5” during ya’ll’s overtime brainstorming session, so everyone can take a minute to calm down and think more productively. If you know the tell, you can recap the slide deck, run through the main points, or simply encourage Carson to bolster his confidence, leading to a better overall presentation.

You don’t learn the tells if you don’t watch the people. Learning angry tells allows you to know when you can afford to push further and when you need to back off. Learning happy tells lets you know when you can ask for favors or extra help. Learning sad tells lets you know when you need to keep interaction strictly professional, or if you can delve into the personal realm. As a side note, this is why I’m not a huge fan of remote work (even though I’m a tech guy). It’s MUCH harder to learn tells through emails and call audio. These signals most often manifest themselves in body language.

As a secondary side note, when you’re watching, you’re not usually talking as much. When your brain is focused on observing things, it’s not as worried about moving your tongue and your lips. As I’ve been told, both seriously and in jest, people won’t realize how dumb you are if you just keep your mouth closed! All jokes aside, idle talk is what hurts a lot of work relationships. If I had spent time watching people’s tells, and not just idly blabbing those first 6 months, I feel like I could have gotten off on a better foot with some of my teammates. Don’t make the same mistakes.