Starting my first full-time job didn’t exactly go to plan. For starters, I thought I’d get to spend at least a week in the office. Like many others about to start their first job, I had certain expectations in my head, like getting to know my co-workers in person and getting to wear my new work wardrobe. Unfortunately, Melbourne’s newest lockdown had other plans.
My first three days of full-time work went how I imagined. Induction first thing, meet the team and get started on a few tasks. Nice and easy. In our office, we often have the news on in the background, and each day we kept hearing about the growing number of cases in New South Wales, and then the cases started in Victoria. Then on Thursday, just before 2 pm, we heard it, Victoria is going back into lockdown. We eventually left not even two hours later, everyone wanting to set up and prepare for what we thought would only last a few days.
I was just starting to feel comfortable in the office, now I have to navigate working from home. In 2020, I completed my university degree online and I virtually volunteer at a not-for-profit, which prepared me some what for my current circumstance.
As with every new job, there is so much to learn, but whilst in a lockdown there’s even more to try and figure out. For example, what do you wear to your first work from home Zoom meeting? What about client Zoom meetings? Also, there are things like new programs that I’ve never used before, new processes and tasks that I’m trying to learn.
My first day working from home felt very similar to my first day in the office. Along with being unsure of the new dress code, I was now a little unsure of how to approach certain things. Like, when is it okay to include an exclamation mark? Because I want to sound happy and not flat all the time in my emails, but at the same time I don’t want to overdo it. Also trying to find times to meet with people to discuss something has become much harder. What could have been a five-minute conversation in the kitchen, or a quick little chat across desks now has to be carefully slotted into calendars.
Whilst it hasn’t been the most traditional first two weeks, there have been some great learning curves and opportunities. I have been able to get involved with tasks and meetings I may not have been privy to so quickly. The amount I have been able to learn has been a highlight throughout this latest lockdown.
That’s not to say that there aren’t moments that are a little bit difficult, however there are some things that the Wrights team have in place to ease that and make working from home easier. Firstly, starting each day with a morning team meeting where we catch up on each other’s work, but also share some gratitude and positivity through personal victories and good news stories. I think it would be so easy to feel isolated and alone having just joined the team and not yet had the opportunity to get to know my co-workers. I have not felt like that, instead, I feel as though I am continuing to learn more about my new co-workers and increasingly feeling a part of the team.
This lockdown has definitely posed a challenge, but I think that the skills and lessons I am lucky enough to be learning so early on in my career are invaluable. And there’s lots I’m still learning, and lots I am yet to learn, and whilst this lockdown hasn’t been entirely horrible thanks to my new team. I cannot wait to get back into the office!!!
