What I Learned From My First Job

Your first job is often your most memorable. I don’t mean the little bit of work you may do for your mom, dad, or a family member that makes you a little bit of pocket change on the side. I’m talking about your first, real, “I went out there and found this one” job that you work at.

Unlike a lot of people, my first job wasn’t sitting cramped in an office cubicle, or running back and forth as an intern hoping someone would give me a moment of real work before the clock struck 5 pm. No, my first foray into working and making money all on my own was as a freelancer, something altogether different from what the typical corporate day to day regime demands of you.

I was hired as a freelance writer for a small video game website my freshman year in college. As I’m sure you can imagine, I had nothing that resembled a strong portfolio or credible body of work just yet. So, I had to apply using a fanfiction story I’d been working on that I’ve long since dropped.

Once I got the email saying they’d love to work with me (much to my surprise) my mind went wild with aspirations. There were videos I wanted to help produce, reviews I wanted to write of my favorite games, comparisons I wanted to draw between popular series to figure out which was better and so on and so forth.

Instead, I was placed at the bottom of the ladder and tasked with reviewing games even I hadn’t heard of and I cared about even less. My first article was about a hockey game that had just been released a few days prior, and they needed a review up as soon as possible. It felt like I’d been slammed into a wall right off the bat.

How am I supposed to write about a something I don’t know about and I don’t care about?

I was paranoid that I’d set myself up for failure thinking I could jump into this industry and take it by storm. But the day before everything was due, I grit my teeth and did the best I could. Everything turned out alright and, even going back to read it now, I can tell where I was struggling to find the words that visitors to the site would actually want to read. After clicking publish, I knew that if I wanted to write the articles I was passionate about I’d have to fight for it and show everyone why my passions were relevant.

That’s not a lesson that working at a 9 to 5 can easily teach you. The agenda is often set by someone higher up than you and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to a point where your input is valuable enough to drive the direction that a project is going. Not so in the moment to moment world of freelancing.

Anyone can come in wanting to leave their mark, but when the work you do, how hard you work, and when you work are all on your plate? Fighting for what you want to see out of your work is all the more important.

The other half of the lesson I learned was about self valuation, something I still struggle with today. While working there, I wasn’t making anywhere close to the amount of money I knew I was worth, but I was afraid to ask for it for one reason or another. This was the other side of the being a young, passionate writer eager for any opportunity: The low pay felt like some rite of passage I had to endure to get to the work I “really” wanted to do. A necessary evil of the industry, as it were.

I came in at a low asking price, and that’s exactly what they paid me. Instead of valuing myself for the money I could be making for them, I felt that they were doing me a favor and took whatever they were willing to give.

The flaws in that mentality extend beyond the world of freelance writing as well. Most from the millennial generation like myself, don’t seem to know that you can negotiate your salary before you accept a job. We grew up watching a dying job market and heard parents and family friends assert just how lucky they were to still have a job and that mentality seems to have shaped the way we approach work now.

In the end, I chose to walk away from working as a freelancer for that website. I left with just over 70 articles under my belt over three years and there’s a warm bit of nostalgia I feel from seeing my work evolve over the three years I worked there. The differences between my first article and my last article feel astronomical. I’ve also learned that I’m not going to be paid what I want unless I ask for it. That first job was a blessing because it gave me a strong portfolio to leap off of, but it also showed me that you can’t be afraid to walk away from something to look for greener pastures.