Surviving my first day at work
As a society, where did we land on giving out gold star stickers for adulting?
The first day of a new job was pretty much the same as the first day of high school, but I couldn’t use my cool pencil case or my love for metal music as a way to make friends. Also, I was not there to make friends. I meant business!
Base-level data entry and filing business.
Meet my inner saboteur
There was a not-so-little part of me who believed I couldn’t do this new job and that I was not ready nor qualified for it and that my English sucked. I knew that was a role I willingly applied for and successfully interviewed for. But what if I couldn’t understand anything? I felt like I was about to fail and let everyone down. What if I sucked? What if I hated it? What if everyone hated me?
Wait a second… Who was this inner saboteur? And who gave it the right to decide how I felt?
I knew it was counterproductive to start worrying before the worrying thing happened. I studied it in philosophy!
I needed to remind myself that I was doing a great job at living. So I wrote it on a unicorn-shaped sticky note and put it in my work notebook for moments of need.
I needed adulting stickers to highlight everyday achievements
Was this how adults navigated life? One sticker at a time?
Surely adults had their sh*t together. Right? I could fake it until I made it.
Organisation: real adults had organisation skills because of all their business and social engagements. Well, I had several pastel and holographic notebooks instead. Aesthetics above all.
Furniture: I bought a mirror and a desk for the spare room where I kept my stuff at the boyfriend’s parents’ house. Buying furniture felt very adult.
When I told my family about my purchases, I got vague ‘childhood drawing’ vibes back from them. “That’s terrifiiic honeyy, goood jooob!” before drawings were hidden in some forgotten box in the garage.
Productive weekends: I felt like a functioning member of society because I deep-cleaned my make-up brushes and went to Ikea instead of playing video games.
I still celebrated the job offer by buying my very own copy of The Sims after all the hacked versions of The Sims 1 and 2 I shared with my friends in high school.
Bills: I only had my phone bill and public transport card to top-up so I was nailing it! Why were adults complaining about bills all the time? Didn’t they set up automatic money transfers with their online banking?
First day of school
About fifteen hundred years ago, I stood in a classroom full of teens with shaky hands and a tentative smile. In hindsight, all of us were glancing around nervously. All I knew about high school came from American TV series but, in Italy, we didn’t have lockers, or bullies, or nerds around.
Some may claim that if you can’t remember the nerds, there’s a good chance you were one. Ha!
I was expecting magic friendships with secrets, code words, and hair braiding during recess. I feared dozens of pages to study for oral exams every day and the strictest teachers. Once I understood the system and found my alternative counterpart, I did pretty well, balancing my rebel act and test preparation. I also learned that hair-braiding was for losers. I always carried two pencils with me, often in my hair bun, in case one broke during heavy note-taking, and I knew the best toilet was the one next to the gym because it was always empty and smelled ‘exotic’.
First day at work
After fifteen successful years of school routine, good grades, and unspoken social hierarchy, I was standing at the front door of an office on the other side of the world for my first day. A bit shaky, clutching my studded-pink-fake-Birkin bag, smiling tentatively, unsure where to sit, or how to remember people’s names. But I had an extra pen in my pocket, just in case, because my corporate goth dress had fantastic pockets.
I wasn’t even sure if I could use the restroom or if I had to wait for recess. Was there recess? Was the coffee free? Could I keep a cup at my desk or would the office janitor tell me off? Were there janitors? Was there a bell at nine o’clock? Did people wait outside before work and walk in together? Did I need to see the boss if I arrived late? Did I need a permit slip? Should I pick a desktop background or keep it neutral? Would I be tagged as a nerd if I read a book during lunch break? Will I be bullied for having a pink USB? What if I was the only one with a Ravenclaw pencil case?
Oh God… What if I was the only one with a pencil case?
That day, more than ever, I found it unbearable to be asked how was I doing by the unsuspecting barista making my coffee. Why couldn’t Australians just say hello and nod instead of wanting to know about my mental state? I didn’t know how I felt but I knew it was not an easy-breezy morning.
That inner saboteur was second only to my nerves.
Yet, I survived. Nobody bullied me. I took notes. I followed a colleague around and had lunch with N, the boyfriend’s friend who would become a beacon of metaphorical light in that literal dungeon.
I could have used an adulting sticker at the end of the day, when I bought my first ‘adult’ bottle of wine to celebrate, instead of the usual cheapest wine. I messaged my family to share the news of the wine but none of them understood the event’s magnitude. “That’s terrifiiic honeyy, goood jooob!”
Spoiler: The taste of adulting was better than the wine itself.
Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence dated back to 2015, when these events took place:
Pencil cases are underrated! I always carry pens and pencils in my purse; now the only logical step is to go buy a pencil case. Duh!
The familiar anxiety of fitting into a new social dynamic. I usually have three phases: 1. Anxious and nervous if I would fit in at all 2. I find something that gives me confidence and put effort into finding my ingroup 3. I lose the anxiety as I prove myself and then actually lose the interest to put in the effort. I think it's a me-problem but the struggle to be part of any clique is all too real.