Remember your first ever “real” job? Remember how nervous you were your first week? Yeah, that lasted about a month for me. Having only ever been a lifeguard, bar back, and working for my school’s athletic department, I never had a corporate job. I got my own desk here. MY own desk. That small fact was enough to make me know it wasn’t going to be so bad.
I just sat there in training that first morning observing everyone else. “Was I too dressed up? Not dressed up enough?” It seemed everyone around the office had varying degrees of professional to non-professional attire. Now, something as trivial as this would not bother most people but, again, the only jobs I had up until this point I had uniforms at each of my jobs. I was always told you want to be the best dressed person in the room. Later, I came to find out that there is no set dress code as long as you don’t make anyone uncomfortable. So essentially I could have came in wearing boxers. Alright, maybe not boxers but dress attire for work is the last thing on anyone’s mind here. Back to the training session. This was all going on when I was still new in my marketing minor. I still wasn’t entirely sure what revenue even was. I just knew it was good for the company. A good majority of my coworkers were business majors or a major related. Every time a business term was thrown around, I would simply nod my head yes in agreement and smile. Works every time. I began thinking to myself, “am I going to have to study for this job as if it were a class?” At the conclusion of training week it was time to hit the phones. As a junior recruiter for healthcare professionals I hadn’t the slightest clue what I was doing. I started calling doctors, and boy, I butchered so many names. Doctors aren’t the best people to piss off if I might add. If your last name is ten letters and seven of those are vowels seemingly jumbled around… c’mon man I’m trying my best. Lots of hang ups and people cursing me out the first week. Great start. After a few weeks though, making the calls felt like second nature. It got to the point where I could personalize my message without looking at the script. I got so used to making the calls where I would accidentally change the pitch of my voice when speaking to a waiter/waitress, or family member on the phone. Have a great day became have a GREAT day. Message of the story is to stop overthinking the little things. You might sell yourself short and not meet your full potential. If I had kept worrying about how I compared to other people in the office I would never have became good at this job. And now I love my internship and the experience I have gained so far.
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I got to thinking, and I really do think I am going to keep writing blog posts even after this class is over. I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to write about up until an hour ago. Most people go to a coffee shop. I went to a pizza joint. The word joint is severely underused these days. As I was saying, I was sitting there and the song “Footloose” came on. This immediately gave me a flashback to my sixth grade talent show.
Now, I have never seen the movie Footloose. The original is older than I am. I just refuse to watch the lazy spawn of a reboot. Yes, I know the newer one got better reviews, but directors deciding to make reboots of classics is one of my biggest pet peeves. Just hit the drawing board and come up with original ideas, geez. Moving on, I was sitting in class one day and they had asked everyone who wanted to participate in the class talent show act to raise their hands. It was announced the theme was going to be Footloose. I took a quick scan of the room and only five out of the twenty-four kids in the class had raised their hands. One of the girls though was my crush. I never danced a day in my life but at that moment I sure as hell was ready to learn. I shot my hand up so fast you would think I got electrocuted. First day of practice, instant regret. I have never been one for classics so having to hear that song over, and over again was terrible. What made it worse, the song would be started from the top every minute until we got down the first few counts of the song. Pretty sure my eardrums became perforated that day. Fast forward two weeks and we finally get up to the couples’ part. This was my shot. So we all shouted who we wanted to be paired with at the same time. We’ll call her Rachel. So I quickly yell “Rachel!”, at practically the same time she yells my buddy’s name. That day I learned what a tumble weed rolling by sounds like. There was awkward silence for what felt like a minute until the mom instructing us made her own pairings. Still didn’t get paired with Rachel. I kid you not, I went home that night and contemplated quitting. The show was in a week. Learning how to grapevine, step-tap, and the iconic Footloose shuffling move was all for nothing now. I was told I had to stay in the show by my mom (I was still eleven at the time) so I did. The night of the show, still a bit salty, I went on stage ready to show off everything we had practiced. This was my first time performing anything in front of that large a group so I didn’t know what to expect. It was awesome. The feeling of wanting to poop myself on stage went away once the song started and the crowd started cheering. I wasn’t even thinking of Rachel anymore. Screw Rachel. I was just happy I stuck with it and made my mom happy. Later that night I went to the local pizza joint (I eat a lot of pizza) with friends to celebrate. These girls at the table behind us kept turning around to look at us. I had seen them around town and knew they were seventh graders. Next, the last thing I would’ve ever thought happened. One tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was the guy that performed the Footloose dance. I stuttered out a yes. She then wrote her number on a gum wrapper (I didn’t have a cell phone at the time) and told me to call her. Holy shit. I was still in elementary school and a middle schooler wanted me to call her. I chickened out and never did. Maybe I lost the gum wrapper. That part I’m not too sure about. It’s crazy to think about how one song can bring back so much. Music is one of those things in life that can take you to another place without actually leaving. I know my first blog post was a little dry, I get that. Think of it as a test flight, overlook the fact that it has to remain posted for my class assignment, and move on. I finally decided that I want to write about my near-daily escapades. Whether that be me attempting to wake board, biting my tongue at work while dealing with a rude person on the phone, or a weekend spanning two, three, or four days. This is the latter.
For some reason, going into Labor Day Weekend it didn't occur to me that this weekend consisted of three days. That’s three nights (four if you’re including Thursday) of “anything goes” debauchery. Maybe I would have passed on Thursday night if I had done my math before. We were headed downtown that night so naturally you have to pregame. A pregame is never just a pregame. We started off playing the normal games until someone suggested we up the ante. Naturally, possessing the athletic prowess that I do, I was the next to lose newly after that rule was added. There was a pump filled with beer. And that's all I'm going to say about that. We hadn't even gotten on the bus to go downtown yet. Once we got on the buses, we quickly realized this is not the typical downtown bus. This was a party bus, with lights, poles, and freshmen gleaming with that freshmen look. Don’t get me wrong, a couple of years ago I would not mind this crowd, being that I was in their shoes not long before. It’s different now though. Some of these kids probably got their braces off a month before, their license not long before that, and I’m graduating in a few months. I just called them kids. We get to the club and it’s nothing less than expected: blinding lights everywhere, college bartenders acting like they know what they're doing, girls on the dance floor dancing and most of the guys standing around waiting for the first girl to come up to them. I love it. My friend was guest bartending for her first time that night so my first drink tasted like three. Keeping in mind I had to work both of my internships the next morning, I told myself I would stop there. That always goes well. I looked over at VIP and that looked fun so I went over. The security guard stammered on about needing to be on the list. I was ready to turn around until my friend in VIP called me in and told the bouncer I’m with them. As he was banding me I remember having the biggest grin on my face like I had just won an Olympic medal. While looking around VIP I couldn’t believe my eyes; I never wanted to go back. Booths, tables, and complimentary bottle service served by girls in clad clothing. The attire was jungle theme that night. I spent the rest of my night there, meeting too many faces I would never remember, and getting numbers that would be lost in my phone forever once the night was over. Then it hit me, I had completely lost all of the friends I originally came with and the buses were about to leave. I scrambled back down to the other part of the bar, found them, and got back on the bus. The night ended late but I still made it to both of my internships in the morning. College. For the purposes of the word limit on this blog I have to end it here. A three day weekend is more than enough. I drank enough caffeine on the following Tuesday to make an elephant to do a handstand. Before coming to college I never thought I would get the chance to have as many experiences as I have had. Going to two different universities, a thousand miles apart definitely made for an interesting few years. I guess I’ve been more reflective lately because I graduate this semester. Movies you see about college usually only focus on the partying, and social atmosphere, and sure there’s enough of that but they never delve into the struggles of being an adult. A real person. I had to learn how to write my first check the other day. I’m twenty two years old.
So far my two years in Florida has practically made me forget what living in Jersey was like. I only go home for holidays now when I get a break from work and school. That's about three times out of the year. It’s great and all that I’ve made a countless amount of friends all along the east coast, but how many of these people do you speak to after graduation? Most people becomes full blown adults working 40 hours a week, and potentially families of their own. Not that I can't picture working and making a salary, thinking of a family is too far for me. Slow down. It's just weird to think that almost everything I know is about to change in a massive way again. Similar to entering college. That's what scares me. Originally, I thought being assigned blog entries for my digital marketing class was going to be a drag. I think I like it. I’m not going to go out and become an author by no means, but I’m interested to see where I’ll go with these. |
Blurbs:This is where I speak about random life instances that could be a story with something to be gained from. Or, it may simply be that, a story. Archives
November 2016
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