#22 Reflections: Workplace or School?

I got my first performance review from work yesterday. There wasn’t much to it since I’ve only been here for 4 months but it still felt weird being told exactly what was expected from me for the nxt year. It felt like being transported back to high school and getting the end of year report card.

A step backwards?

I feel like the change from University to the workplace is almost taking a step backwards in many ways. We went from school and college into University and had our first taste of freedom and autonomy. In the first year, things were rocky as we adjusted to not being reminded about deadlines, not being given detention for missing classes, not knowing some lecturers names. Life just suddenly felt like it had loosend itself for us a bit too quickly.

But then second and final year came and we got comfortable with this sytem. We chose what lectures were worth attending, what submissions made sense to focus on more. We were the ‘masters of our fate’. We were made to be really. It affected no one, apart from you, if you failed your degree or not. So no one needs to care apart from you.

The workplace

Then you enter the workplace, feeling all accomplished and set for life, ready to carry on blossoming from all you learnt in your degree only to be told to sit down and do what is told. Since people were very much getting affected by your actions, suddenly your actions weren’t yours to decide.

Suddenly all the freedom you had gets stripped away. You must be at your desk every morning by this time and dont leave it until that time. You must attend this training and that meeting. You must pass this exam and finish this assessment. Or be prepared to get kicked out.

Ok fair enough. It’s not as bad as the horror stories we hear from our parents generation in their offices. With the push towards modernising the office life, there rules are less imposing. But regardless, you are definitely no longer the master of your own fate.

It almost makes sense why companies are pushing more to hiring school-leavers through apprenticeship programs than hiring graduates. There’s less resistance to the office life from them, rather than us. The leap from school life to work-life is less steep than from University life. They haven’t tasted the freeedom of autonmy that the rest of us did. It’s just a continuation from their previous chapter.

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I’m not sure if there is a lesson to take away from this reflection.

But it does make me grateful. For being given the blessing of attending universtiy and not having to jump into the workforce before. I know if I had, I would not be where I am today.

I know I would have been content just being another sheep.