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How bad was your first job out of college?

N

n8236

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 1, 2006
1,065
32
I'm gonna vent a little here since most people on this board are sympathetic :)
------------

Got my job through a temp agency (which takes nearly a 50% cut). I was hired to work for a wine marketing firm as a temp. To keep it short and sweet,

1) no dedicated voice mail
2) Had my extension changed when some lawyer came in after me
3) No real work email address
4) No lunch on my first day
5) Brings lunch to boss
6) Cleans back room
7) Can't attend special company events
8) Others always borrowing/using my laptop having to give out my login/pw

I'm sure some of these are the way it is for a someone who is temp, but some of this to me seems ridiculous for a company that requires a strict dress code 5 days a week and earns over $200 million a year in revenues.

I hate this Hell hole, i'm trying to get out as freakin quick as I can.
 
Yeah, that sounds like the experiences of a lot of people I know. Lots of temp work at horrible firms that treat them like crap.

I'm not looking forward to finishing grad school in June, as I've managed to get nothing lined up yet, and will probably end up in the same boat.
 
no VM/email/company cell is actually a good thing - less work to do!

enjoy! ;)
 
After I graduated college I moved from Indiana to LA in June 2001 w/nothing lined up. By Dec 2002 I had only worked one paying gig, trickled thru all my savings, moved back to Indiana in Jan 2002 w/only my credit cards as a means of support, and started working at Blockbuster in March 2002. Needless to say, that's not how I pictured life one year after college graduation.

I couldn't even get a temp job as the job market at the time sucked so bad that the temp market was flooded w/people who had legit work experience but had been down sized. Basically a lot of people fell a few rungs down the ladder and those just trying to grasp the first rung got smashed into the mud.


Lethal
 
I'm just about to start mine, its a permanent contract which I think helps.
We are not allowed to take our laptops to work for security reasons, don't get a cellphone. We do get email, and a canteen provides lunch(I hope the foods good)

I just hope I'm choosing the right job, as they say your first job is rather important.

I think initially all jobs are a bit crappy as you get tasked to do the menial tasks that nobody else wants to do. I hope it gets better after a while.
 
Actually my first job out of college was much better than my current. My boss was positive and appreciative. Once he got to where he could trust my work, he left me alone as long as I was getting my work done. I was overworked but the work was interesting and the work day passed by quickly.

In my current job, I work in a toxic work environment (very negative), I have a boss who has no business being a manager (has no management skills) and very negative co-workers. The boss is so afraid of making a wrong decision he mico-manages the entire office and I have no decision authority (even though I am in a management position). Any time I need to discuss something with him to get a decision made it always digresses into a "history lesson" (back in 1979, there was a memo that said it was done "this way.").

I don't enjoy the work I do either. To add insult to injury, I have only opportunity for a promotion in probably the next 15 years and its to a job that is less desireable to my current position.

I had a discussion with my former boss about an upcoming opening back in that office. Its taking a demotion but the pay cut will be minimal (less than $50/paycheck) and will give me more opportunities...
 
Well, I guess I got lucky because I liked my first out-of-college job. It took a bit of time to acclimate to the new working environment, but once I got over that little hump everything was pretty dandy. I can't say that it was perfect, but it was good enough for me to still be in the same line of work and actually at the same company.
 
I know a guy whose job was night janitor at an adult movie theater. Basically he had to don rubber gloves and pick up used condoms all night. :eek: Since he told me this, I never bitch about whatever crappy job I may have.
 
I too am still at my first job out of college. I found a position that was open at a large post house in L.A. and managed to get the job 3,000 miles away in Virginia. So I packed up my things and two weeks later I was in L.A. After a rough first week trying to find a place to live, I got settled in and was good to go. Six months later I've got a Mac Pro and a car (L.A.'s buses suck, seriously) and I'm feeling alright. :D
 
I've been at my first "real" job for about six months now. I graduated from college in May of last year, and was on the hunt for a job for about four months before I completely lucked out.

The job I ended up taking was advertised as a PHP and MySQL development position, but turned out to be much more. :p

Six months later, I'm the system administrator for all of our enterprise linux servers, which completely overwhelmed me six months ago, but I feel I've grown into the role pretty well. I also do a fare bit of development, writing all sorts of back-end applications and internal web sites that are used by company employees at all of our stores. ColdFusion, MySQL, and Informix drive most of our web front-end and other applications, while PHP and MySQL are used extensively on the back-end. Lucky me, the task of making sure all of our database servers are running falls on my shoulders, with the exception of managing Informix itself, which luckly falls into the capable hands of a couple of my coworkers.

My boss is amazing, as are the other people I work with. We see ourselves more as peers than anything else, and the work relationship(s) and environment is very laid back. I love it, and plan to be there for the next several years, if not longer.

I'm just happy.

Plus, I have a Mac. So, doubleplushappy.
 
I am still in school for al least 2 more years... and in a job full time that I got after my second degree.
Since I deal with human remains in various stages of decomp it can get pretty nasty. But my customers dont complain... I dont have to attend meetings ( very often), my boss does the same work I do.
Bad side is that my work clothes smell like something left in the fridge too long. I occasionally cant eat meat with out it reminding me of work. I spend so much time in disposable bunny suits that I dont know what the latest clothing style is... and it feels weird not to be wearing gloves.
 
I worked for my father starting at age 22. I didn't finish college at the time. The ten years following sucked.

At age 33, we sold the business and I took 8 months off work to finish my degree. Upon the December graduation, I took a temp job at a local pork manufacturing plant (formerly Bryan Foods, then Sara Lee, now closed). It actually worked in to a full-time job. I was an overqualified departmental secretary and assistant to a VP, then forecast and reporting clerk. The VP was/is an amazing guy. He treated us all like human beings, despite the corporations attempts at discouraging him. After almost four years there, I left for another job because 1) I hated cubicles and 2) they were moving their sales department and discontinuing my position.

Eight years and three jobs later, at age 41, I went to college again to get a Masters of Arts in Teaching so I could teach high school English. I love it.

I did another temp position for about eight months before I went to school the most recent time. I processed accounts payable at a large manufacturing firm.

In both temp positions, I just did what I was asked and smiled. I also did more than I was asked when I saw the opportunity.

Make the best of it, you never know what any opportunity might become!
 
iSaint said:
...at age 41, I went to college again...
Click to expand...

should be about the same for me (college again).

about 2 years of college after high school, then got an amazing job, so dropped out to concentrate on work and get married. job hit a wall when i applied for the area management position a few years later and was told i was not eligible without a degree. they hired a recent grad. i did my job and his job for about 3 weeks and then told him where he could stick his nice new diploma. joined the army, got like a billion dollars worth of training in just about anything you can think of, and ended up in medical imaging repair. electronics, computers, and radiation... what could be better?! i left southern california as a senior imaging engineer with a billable rate of $280 p/hour. not bad for a high school degree. deciding to become a stay at home dad (by choice) has me looking back in the direction of college in a bit when my kids hit school full time. should be interesting...
 
4JNA said:
should be about the same for me (college again). ...has me looking back in the direction of college in a bit when my kids hit school full time. should be interesting...
Click to expand...

iSaint said:
Eight years and three jobs later, at age 41, I went to college again...
Click to expand...

I would love to go back to school. I have a bs in electrical engineering, but I would re-do it all and study neuroscience.
 
I assume you mean the first after my scholastic career (I went to law school after college). I'm there now. It could be worse, but I've figured out how to leech into the system. But, it's temp work. I've been trying, and I just hope I can find something permanent by the time I hit my year mark at the end of July.

Who'd have thunk that an (barred) attorney would have trouble finding work in the DC area. I'm to the point that we'll move just about anywhere...:(
 
Graduating in May with a Creative Writing and English Lit. degree.

Yeah, just saying it sounds like a funeral bell tolling.

Hoping for some luck, and working for less.
 
Sounds like most of you have very lucrative careers :)

My job just keeps getting worse by the day.

1) My boss goes thru one of her associates and claims I do my work too slow (when she's the one who never gives me any to do when I am done, knowingly so).

2) Keeps me out of loop on all projects

3) Has her associate refer me to a recruiting firm

4) No longer mentors me for new material

5) Has me do stuff that's 100% unimportant and a total waste of time (sorting/filing labels, wtf)

The message is pretty clear, she wants me out. I don't intend on staying there anyways, but it's just the fact that I know what she's trying to do that bothers me. It has past 3 months and she knows I can perform, but I have yet to ask for a permanent position because I am not interested in one. It should be obvious to her. So I don't know why these tactics are even necessary. She's a total witch anyways.
 
4JNA said:
should be about the same for me (college again).

about 2 years of college after high school, then got an amazing job, so dropped out to concentrate on work and get married. job hit a wall when i applied for the area management position a few years later and was told i was not eligible without a degree. they hired a recent grad. i did my job and his job for about 3 weeks and then told him where he could stick his nice new diploma. joined the army, got like a billion dollars worth of training in just about anything you can think of, and ended up in medical imaging repair. electronics, computers, and radiation... what could be better?! i left southern california as a senior imaging engineer with a billable rate of $280 p/hour. not bad for a high school degree. deciding to become a stay at home dad (by choice) has me looking back in the direction of college in a bit when my kids hit school full time. should be interesting...
Click to expand...

It's a blast! You're actually there to learn, and it's fun doing so. The people in my program varied in age from the 20s to 50s, and we all respected each other and helped each other through. Good luck!
 
I've been on the job for about three months now I think, I graduated in December.

My job is great, very entry level, but I also have a job that needs to be done and I appreciate the fact that I'm needed. I've put in some OT already and I get new responsibilites on a semi-regular basis. I had a few offers coming out of school but I think I made the right choice. They've hinted at sending me on my first trip over the summer, so hopefully that works out.

The thing I miss the most is the fact that they ban iPods inside my work, grrr.
 
Wow, I'm sorry to hear about all of your employers banning iPods and laptops and that sort of thing.

The entire IT staff at my company are pretty close knit -- we have about 25 in our group, and we're allowed to play music (as long as it doesn't bother those in the offices around us), and me and my co workers bring our laptops sometimes as well with no problems.

Sometimes a little leniency can go a long way, I think.
 
First job (age 14):
Pizza shop... it sucked big time.

Second (age 15)
Grocery store. Sucked.

Third: (Age 16)
Wawa deli. Sucked.

Third (Age 17): Mini-golf, paintball park. Kinda sucked.

Fourth (18) Hardware store.
Quit due to harassment by older employee. Should have sued them. Sucked.

Fifth (19-20): Systems Administrator, report directly to CIO of College.
Awesome job. Totally appreciated for my work effort and dedication.
 
I'm in the first month of my first real job (after grad school) working as an engineer. It's going quite well and they seem to be giving me plenty of responsibility, which is rewarding. I can sympathize with the people out there who are not having good experiences, and am impressed with the number of people going back to school 'later in life'.

Keep up the good work, everybody.
 
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