Welcome to the Real World...

Welcome to the Real World...

Written by Candace Sharpe
PR Internship - Blog Post One
Date - 29th of September

Hi there! I'm writing from the real workplace, out in the big, wide world of responsibilities and deadlines. From a place where people are relying on you to help out to make their lives a little bit easier and where people have higher expectations of your abilities than you do. #believeinyourself

Working in the PR and Marketing Department at Toyota, an outlet of AHG (Automotive Holdings Group), is so incredibly different to my casual waitress position at a family restaurant on the beach. The differences in environments are polar. I think that was definitely what I struggled most in my first week.

Firstly, my usual occupation is busiest on weekends, where you sleep in most mornings because you didn't clock off until after midnight. Adjusting to early mornings and working Monday's while the sun is up is so strange. It requires quite a lot of coffee. Thank God for double-strength caramel soy lattes!

Next are the staff. Mostly University students and my own age, I waitress with a group of people, mostly girls, that are all like me. We laugh and enjoy the limited responsibility of a casual position while we stress over our upcoming assessments and exams. An office environment is completely different, I'm the youngest here by five years, with my Supervisor being the closest age to me at 26. The people here have such different priorities and adapting to those changes have been rather sobering. They have all been so incredibly kind and have definitely been keeping me busy with tasks but it's obvious that they see the world very differently to a single, 22 year old waitress in stilettos. Honestly, I've appreciated how different everyone here is, it's already taught me all the ways to communicate with people, based on what they're dealing with. Understanding how they work is also an amazing indicator of their personality. With so many departments, the variety of people is incredible and seeing the world the way they do has been rather challenging. I feel like it's already broadening my world view. As naive as this may sound, I'm learning that not everybody is like me and that the things that I think are important don't even cross the minds of the people that I'm working with and vice versa.

Finally, the work itself. Waitressing does not require much brainpower, it's not overly challenging and can pretty much be done while thinking about a dozen other things. This is why I do it, I didn't want something crazy stressful, when Uni was giving me enough of that. It works for me and I enjoy it. At Toyota, your work is important and a direct reflection of your talent and worth to the organisation. It's challenging and sometimes draining but it is also so rewarding to see that your hard work is paying off. Here, there is physical evidence of your presence, which is great but also mandatory. In the real world, you need to prove your worth and that worth is determined by the quality of work you produce. It's amazing!

I will definitely blog about my PR work and everything that I've been working on here, which is a lot! I just really wanted my first post to be about how different work places and industries can be and how I'm managing that. So, if you're reading this and are also navigating the big, wide world of post-Uni workplaces, you're not alone. #wereallinthistogether #highschoolmusicalreference

Talk soon!