General Office Life for Dummies
I am now a few months into the job and settling in nicely to the big wide world of work. As this is my first real office experience, there are a few things that I wasn’t aware of when I started and a few things that I had to get used to in order to survive. I’ve already learnt so much by working here and while much of it is specific to the world of business psychology, there’s still a lot to learn about general office life which I think is only fair to share:
- Ask away – There’s nothing that will single you out as an office newbie more than just sitting there, nodding and smiling, when you clearly don’t know what’s going on. My colleagues and superiors are aware that this is my first job and are thankfully sympathetic to my sometimes redundant questions. All the jargon and general office goings on seem so obvious when you’ve been there for a while but everyone has a first day at some point – you’re not expected to know everything!
- Take note – This might sound very obvious but it’s easy to forget. When you do pluck up the courage to ask a potentially self-explanatory question you might want to make a note of the answer somewhere. Likewise, if someone asks you to do something you should probably take note; who, where, what, when? This is helpful in the future when you need to refer back to something or just to give yourself a “Look how far I’ve come. Well done me!” moment.
- Re-stocking vital office supplies – If you use up the last one of something make sure you get more or ask someone else to. This applies to many office necessities from highlighters, printer ink and stamps to biscuits and teabags. There’s nothing worse than taking up your turn of tea making to find there’s no milk. Be the hero and alert tea makers to their planning shortfall, before making that visit to the corner shop.
- Plan things – This would also apply to the previous point, if you plan your corner shop visit wisely you will avoid the possibility of a milk drought. But more importantly you should be planning your time. You will likely be working on a number of things at once and at some point another task will be added to the list. Once you’ve taken note of the ‘when’ you can prioritise and life will run smoothly.
- Get friendly with technology – Try and learn how to use essential office appliances quickly, they are designed to make your life easier. Understanding the photocopier and how to put callers on hold (very useful) are good places to start. Being computer literate also makes it look like you know what you’re doing… sort of.
There you have my top 5 tips for surviving your first desk job. Look out for future instalments providing an insight into my role as Criterion’s student intern.
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