Call me old fashioned but I’m shocked and appalled at the number of stories I hear about young folk – supposedly keen to get a career and make their mark on the world of work – who are given opportunities only to chuck it in because it requires some effort. Yes, sorry kids, working is tough and requires more energy than lying in bed watching movies all day or pissing around on computer games.
Take, for example, the girl on work experience at my mate’s PR firm the other month. She piddled around on Facebook all day and then didn’t bother turning up for the rest of the week. Then there’s the lad who can’t be arsed to get in work on time and leaves it until mid morning to call in sick. What’s that all about? And what about the kid who turned up at a newspaper office in trainers and asked if he could go home at lunch time because he was bored. Oh, and I once interviewed someone for a trainee reporter’s job who looked at me blankly when asked “what is news?”. Do your research peeps, it’s competitive out there!
When I was a wee cub reporter I made such an effort to create a good impression. Being given a job wasn’t enough for me, I wanted to keep it, and not only that – I wanted to be good it at. This was tough for me, I was painfully shy, but well aware that I was going to have to put myself in some uncomfortable positions if I wanted to learn and do well. I may have hated a lot of it, but it’s just what I had to do.
So, knowing that I wanted to be a journalist I spent two weeks’ work experience at two local newspapers because I knew I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting a job without a bit of experience. A lot of people think they want to be journalists but you only get taken on if you’re serious about being one. I was.
That said, those two weeks were hell on earth and the longest days on the planet. Time ticked oh so slowly and with my super shyness on top, I was soooo glad when it was all over. I knew one of the weeks wouldn’t be so great when I phoned a week before my arrival to ask what the dresscode was.
“Where a shirt and tie lad, the usual office stuff,” said the editor down the phone to me.
“Erm, I’m a girl,” I explained, nervously.
“Er…er… then wear whatever you want,” he stuttered.
Ironically, a decade later when I was sitting in the editor’s chair, this man became my deputy. I never did remind him of his misplaced dresscode advice, or the fact he never signed and returned my work experience certificate.
During my first few years as a reporter, senior reporter and then chief reporter, I made sure to be the first in the office and the last to leave. Okay, so I may have been there only two minutes before and two minutes after everyone else, but I had a point to prove. And if my editor was working late then so did I.
I don’t do sick days, the only time I’ve had off ill is four days with flu back in 1999 and two days around five years ago because I had an operation and couldn’t drive. But if I ever do feel ill enough not to go to work, I’ll be sure to notify my line manager before 9am and preferably not by text message. It’s not good enough to call in at 10am when your boss has already sent out a search party!
Sometimes, there’s nothing I’d love more than to sack work off for the day and spend it in bed watching back-to-back Murder She Wrote, catch up on sleep or go shopping. But I don’t. I have a job to do, which for the most part I enjoy and which pays my bills. I have to go.
So for lazy teenagers or 20-somethings given a chance at their chosen career to not put the effort in – especially in the current climate when jobs are few and far between – is simply scandalous. Sorry folks, you will have to drag yourself out of bed in the mornings, you will have to sacrifice other things you enjoy doing in daylight hours and you will have to spend time doing mundane tasks before you get a proper footing on the career ladder. But jobs aren’t handed out and you usually have to do more than turn up every now and then to keep them. Oh, and another thing…. having a degree doesn’t mean you’ll fall into a job either and neither does it entitle you to one. If you have to work for free to get some experience for a while then that’s what you have to do. Work hard in the early days and you’ll reap the benefits in later life. Honest.
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