My Gen Y Life

Suddenly assumptions are made about you: your physical appearance will change, your mental and emotional state may be affected, and you will be taking a maternity leave - meaning that your team is down a person for an extended period of time and there’s nothing your manager can legally do about it. It might not be the happiest of news for your manager to hear, but here are some ways to mitigate their concerns from early on.

Wait as long as you possibly can to tell your boss. After you find out you’re pregnant, keep this “secret” to yourself. Err on the side of caution because it’s possible that you may result in a miscarriage (doctors estimate that up to 30% of pregnancies do). Even if everything appears healthy with the pregnancy there’s no reason to have this news floating around for eight months or so and giving your manager more leeway to second-guess your worth on the team or what projects to assign to you. If you have morning sickness, try to control it and make up excuses if needed (“there must be a bug floating around” or “I’m on a new diet”) until it’s absolutely necessary to tell. For most women this is when you start really showing (as far along as 4-5 months if it’s your first). Until then reserve your excitement and discussion about having a baby with your close friends and family, as hard as it may be!

The announcement: Think before you speak. So you’ve held it in for several weeks or months and now you’re ready to tell your boss. Time it around a successful completion of a project or milestone. Give your boss every impression that you will be as willing and capable as ever to work at the same level, and have an idea for how much maternity leave you plan to take. This will show your manager that you are responsible and will put them more at ease with your leave time. And by all means don’t exacerbate the whole situation after you’ve made the announcement by bringing up your growing belly at every conversation with coworkers. This could lead to casual sexism in the workplace, especially from men. You will get enough attention as it is, and you want to show that you can gracefully juggle your professional career with your not-so-personal-anymore life situation. 

If you’re at all like me and feel you’ve made the most of your early twenties, your late twenties can be an exciting time for starting a family. After all the average age in the U.S. for having your first child is 25, and you’re not getting any younger!

Knowing where to cross the line on helping out others can make or break your career. My approach to taking care of my husband when he’s hurt or ill taught me a great lesson about what I should or shouldn’t do at work if I want to be successful.

When I came home from work one day I found my DH sitting on the couch with his hand lying limp above his head and a miserable look on his face. He was supposed to be at class already so I asked him what was wrong. The poor guy had a ‘man cut’ (if you haven’t seen it, view the “man cold” on YouTube). He had accidentally cut his thumb with a razor knife when opening a package and it was making him feel lightheaded so he was holding his hand above his head to stop the throbbing - for three hours. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get much sympathy from me. My approach is self-service: you do what you need to do to get better and move on. I never got doted on by my parents unless I had a life-threatening injury. With four of us girls in the house my parents had no room for a bunch of whiners – we were taught to “toughen up” and chastened that we “should have known better.” It was a rare incident to be catered on and oftentimes made us miss out on doing what the others were doing, so we learned quickly that there was no benefit to being sick or injured very long.

Some guys may have been brought up with similar nurturing styles from their parents, but it’s common belief that men have less tolerance for pain. Therefore, a minor cut for my husband is suddenly much more severe than if I were to have a cut. At one point his self-pity reached an all-time high when he said that he didn’t feel it was “safe for him to drive,” which is why he had to miss his night classes. On the business side, women generally tend to put up with more “pain” than men and are more willing to help people out. I learned from my experience with my husband how important it is not to let others take advantage of you and to set a precedent from the beginning. If I had given in and done everything for my husband when he was perfectly capable, he would likely expect the same thing to happen the next time around. If you’ve ever had to train a new person to do your former job, you know how easy it is to just “do it for them” rather than teach them how and why you did it. For some coworkers the old adage applies where if you give an inch they take a mile – if you step outside your responsibilities to do their work once they will expect it again. Before you know it, you will be extremely frustrated and they will be getting the credit for all of your work.

So next time someone at work asks you to do something for them, make sure you think twice about how you will respond. If you decide to help them out, make sure they know it is a favor and that you normally wouldn’t be responsible for that. Although you may feel “bad” at first, it will be for your benefit in the end.

Some people take the subway, some ride the bus, selfish people drive alone, and I ride the vanpool. It’s like a cross between a carpool and a bus. You get the benefits of being able to call when you’re late (or if they’re late) but you don’t have to deal with the drama of a one-on-one carpool, or so I thought…

Everything was going fine until DQ (drama queen) showed up a few months ago. You know those kind of people too – they look for drama and thrive on drama every day. They complain about petty things and make comments to try and get reactions from people, and get nosy about other people’s business. These people are not allowed in my friend circle (unless you’re my sister and I don’t have a choice) because they cause more harm than harmony. Don’t get me wrong, I can get along with them, but it’s not my choice of company. Unfortunately even as a professional you may still have to deal with a DQ every now and then.

Here’s what I’ve learned about how to deal with the DQ’s in your life:

Don’t join the pity party – Misery loves company, and so do DQ’s. If you have a friend who is complaining and whining about something don’t be afraid to stand up to them if you disagree, and by all means don’t encourage it. Beware because DQ’s can be very persuasive and believable.

Take the high road – DQ’s have probably been this way since high school or earlier, and somehow not outgrown the fetish with drama in their lives. Act like the professional you are and don’t make a big deal about things that aren’t really a big deal, even if DQ thinks they are.

Nice guys finish last – If you’re lucky the DQ will become bored with the drama-free life you live and move on, but if not be a nice person and follow the above steps and you’ll be rewarded in the end. You might also call this “flying below the radar” so you’re not noticed too much by DQ, and therefore their attention will be given to other people.

Update: DQ left the vanpool because she didn’t get to sit in the front as much as she wanted – lame!

So you scrounged up a suit for the interview, but now you have to wear business attire five days a week! Suddenly you seem to have nothing to wear (okay, so you have clothes, but they’re mostly from college with Hollister branded all over them). The business suits I did have were juniors-department-store-polyester-rayon ones, not made to last more than wearing them once or twice a semester.

You don’t have to sacrifice your style to wear business attire, but you also don’t have to spend a fortune. Here are some tips to building up your first corporate wardrobe:

Refresh your sewing skills. No, not to make your own clothes (unless you’re really brave) but to repair them. Do an inventory of your closet and see if you can find any work-type clothes that are of decent quality but maybe just need a button replaced or a hem re-sewn. You can also use a sewing machine to alter your clothes for the perfect professional fit.

Find wardrobe staples. These are the basics of your wardrobe that you can mix and match to create different looks. Depending on whether your work is business professional attire or business casual, you should invest in at least one nice black suit, a few pairs of trousers or slacks, a few blazers, a couple pairs of khaki pants, and some button-up shirts and cardigans or sweaters. I always make sure I have long-sleeve shirts or sweaters to wear even in the middle of summer so I don’t freeze in my cube!

Don’t break the bank. Go shopping during big sales and download coupons from online or get added to their mailing list. You don’t have to go to 5^th Avenue to shop, but try for the nicer department stores. Another thing I have done is to allocate myself enough money to buy one or two nice pieces of clothing each month. After a year or so you’ll start to have a really nice wardrobe coming together.

Don’t skimp on the shoes. Some nice black pumps or boots are essential for work. Find a pair that you can wear for a while, made of real leather and no more than 2.5 to 3″ high. If you are dying to get some new wedges or that cute new sandal, don’t spend a lot of money on them because you know you aren’t going to wear them longer than a year.

Buy trendy accessories. As I mentioned above, if you want to be trendy go for the cheaper items that you can use and not feel bad about throwing away after a year. Spend the bigger bucks on basic things that will last. No one will know you picked up that necklace at Forever 21 if you are dressing it up with a nice suit or pants. Be careful though – you don’t want to cheapen your look with items that are too teenager-trendy and make you look like you’re still in high school.

Take care of your nice clothes. Maybe I was lazy in college but I rarely ever brought anything to the dry cleaners. Sure, your clothes can be washed and dried with everything else, but they will wear down faster and compromise the quality of your new duds. Do yourself a favor and follow the directions on the tag so that you can wear them longer and keep them looking new.

To sum it up, put your money in the quality not the quantity. It’s so embarrassing when you get to work at realize that your lapel is unraveling or when you notice that you’re the only one with huge 4″ chunky heels! Being a professional means looking the part, and building up a nice corporate wardrobe will give you more credibility and self-confidence.

I’m generally a happy person, but there are times when I’m not smiling at work. I may be concentrating on a report, thinking of ideas, just had a frustrating conversation, concerned about someone, or so on. I don’t think anyone could smile throughout the day and really mean it.

There are also some people who are paid to be nice, like receptionists for example, so they can be approachable for guests, etc. That’s part of their job. There are some people out there though who are “too” nice, and have ulterior motives for doing so. These people put on a fake smile and ask everyone how their day is going, and force conversations with people just to say they “know” them.  

Instead of this superficial nicety, just be genuinely nice to people you respect. You could lose respect quickly by being overly friendly. Most people can see right through it and it can discredit your persona for the long-term. Here are three reasons not to be nice to everyone:

1. You’ll be the “nice” guy. This is never a compliment you want. The person saying this obviously couldn’t think of anything more valuable about you then being “nice” because you over-exaggerate the very meaning of the word.
2. Co-workers won’t take you serious. Being too nice to people will automatically mark you as a pushover. Unless your co-workers only want to hear “nice” things from you, they will likely not consider you a credible person to offer critique.
3. You’ll be passed over for promotions. Good managers know when to be tough and stand up for their employees. If you’re too nice, how can your manager trust you to stand up to people if it could ruin your “nice” image?

Most companies don’t use the word “secretary” anymore - companies have become more creative with terms like “administrative assistant”, ”client service representative”, and my favorite, “project coordinator”. I don’t care what they call it, it means you’re going to be answering calls, setting up meetings, doing paperwork, filing, and copying. If that’s you’re calling in life - great, we can’t live without you. If the sound of doing that the rest of your professional life makes you cring, read on.

You know in college when they chanted the alumni phrase: “Once a [insert mascot here], always a [insert mascot here].” Now insert “secretary” into that blank. I received sound advice from a former employee who told me not to take a secretary job for the company just to get in. Big mistake, she said, because from that time forward everyone thought of her as the go-to person for completing the daily administrative duties regardless of what her job description said. She was even turned down for other jobs because of her perceived limited abilities.

Thankfully to her, I passed over the secretary jobs and waited for the right opportunity to come up. It took me interviewing for 4 positions before I was offered a job as a web specialist. It wasn’t my ideal job (who’s first job is?), but it was something related to my skills that would teach me a lot and open up more opportunities.

Unfortunately, I still had to fight the label as the secretary of the group. I don’t know if it was because I was young, blonde, or sat in a cube outside a conference room, but people would ask me where the manager was, ask me to setup meetings, and assumed that I knew how to fix the copy machine. After feeling a little peeved at first, I would tactfully respond with the name of the actual secretary for the manager and send them on their way.

Luckily, over time, people took the hint, I focused on my real job, and did work above and beyond. Proving that I could handle project management, write well, and think outside the box were key in distinguishing me from any previous perceptions people had about me. My manager was also my champion, and would include me on projects that would give me greater exposure in the company. Now I feel that I have created a good persona for myself and it shows with the promotions and projects that I’ve been given.

Your first year or two in the company in crucial for developing your persona, and if you do it well you will be rewarded. Do yourself a favor and don’t make secretarial duties the main focus of your job - let the real secretary do what he/she does best.