Originally, I was going to write a brief article about advice I’d give to those who are much younger in their career and are searching for internships. But, as I reflected more and more on my most recent internship, I realized that there was so much more to share! But first, let me talk about this one amazing word, grace!
Natural Grace
If you do a quick Google search for the word “grace”, you’ll get something like, “simple elegance or refinement of movement”, or, “courteous goodwill”.
While you might not use this word a lot, you might use the related words, “graceful”, to describe elegant movement; or, “gracious” to describe a person’s kind/gentle personality. For example, “Did you see that ballet dancer? Her leaps were very graceful!” Or, “We were fed up with the situation, but he was very gracious in handling it!”
In one of the BibleProject Podcast episodes, they do a deep dive study on the Hebrew word, “khen”, which roughly translates to grace. They cover the idea of an object/person having this character of grace (similar to what I just mentioned); but they also extend this idea: This grace isn’t just focused on the beauty or elegance of the object, but it’s also about how this grace is perceived in the eyes of the observer. In other words, this grace refers to something that’s valuable or that generates a favourable response. For example, a beautiful necklace would generate favour: “Wow, what a stunning necklace! I think I’ll buy it!” All of this is the natural way we think of grace!
Relational Grace
If you think about it, grace is also relational! As I mentioned, something/someone graceful/gracious would cause a response of grace (that is, grace given by someone). This typically plays out in places where there is a difference in status. For example, between a king and his servant:
- The servant is graced by the king’s presence (the king graces his servant with his presence)
- The servant seeks grace (favour) from the king (and the king would be gracious by giving the servant his favour)
However, what is extremely rare is for someone in a subordinate/vulnerable position to show favour to someone in a higher position. A servant will never have the chance to show grace to their king.
Because of this relational aspect of grace, a lot of cultures emphasize the importance of being choosy as to who to show grace to. Showing grace puts the recipient in your debt! To climb the social ladder in honour/shame cultures, you need to be strategic about who to show favour to — since by doing so, you are associating with them, declaring that they are worthy of your generosity, and of course, putting them in your debt. So, it’s best to pick people who will increase your status/honour when they eventually return the favour back.
Ultimate Grace
I’d describe ultimate grace like this: you decide to respond to something that isn’t delightful with grace, while also adding an aspect of generosity!
As Stuart Scott puts in his book, The Exemplary Husband, “Grace can be defined as ‘giving what is not deserved’”.
God Himself displays this ultimate grace as well, and it’s shown in Romans 5:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. — Romans 5:6–8
And also in Ephesians 2:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. — Ephesians 2:1–9
In other words, humans were not graceful — we did not deserve to be gifted anything from God because of our sin. In fact, we deserved to be eternally separated from Him. Yet, God demonstrated this ultimate grace by generously gifting His son as the way of restoring our relationship with Him! This is the exact opposite of what culture promotes!
Isn’t this demonstration of ultimate grace so amazing? God chose to associate with us even though we weren’t worth it, simply because of His love for us!
Transformative Grace
Like I mentioned, an act of grace also results in a response of grace. What does that look like?
If you continue on in Ephesians 2, it reads:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. — Ephesians 2:10
In other words, after receiving ultimate grace, our lives are completely transformed — we now desire to respond to grace with grace!
1 Peter 4 helps us understand what this looks like in specific:
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. — 1 Peter 4:10
My Experience
I experienced this type of grace during my co-op not just once, but twice!
I detailed some of my experience through the interview process in a post I made last year. But to keep the story short, I was graced with the job I never deserved. I’d say I completely bombed the interview. Yet, the HR team at UKG (the company I worked at) generously offered me the job, despite my shortcomings during the interview.
Being a recipient of grace, I desired to do the best I could during my internship; by learning as quickly as I could, working efficiently and improving the quality of my work week by week — all with the reminder that I ought to be a good steward.
As my full-time placement came to an end, I desired to work with my team part-time while still doing full-time school (not the greatest idea, but more on that later) and was generously offered a part-time role. I was excited to continue to crush work and also do well in school. Yet, I had no idea how much more grace I was about to receive.
I came into the part-time role thinking that I’d be able to finish a major item every single week. Yet, because of how tough school was (and that’s a huge understatement — I’ll spare you the grueling details), I found myself walking a thin line, barely juggling school and work properly, worrying about whether or not I was putting enough effort in my group projects, exam preparations, and work items. Yet, time and time again, my team at UKG was extremely patient and gracious with me: “It’s okay Anda, we understand. Take your time, focus on school first, and just communicate with us regularly!”
Coming to the end of the spring term, I was deeply convicted of the fact that I simply could not continue working with them during my next study, because I wasn’t doing the best I theoretically could. I wanted to be able to give my job my best because I had received so much grace from them throughout the entire 8 months I was with them.
Even still, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity and thankful for the wonderful, extremely gracious and patient team I worked with! To WFM TOA/Team Phoenix, thank you all so much for your investment in me! I’ve grown so much in my skills, character and convictions because of you!
Advice For (Younger) Interns
This is primarily targeted toward those in software development, but the same principles should apply.
- To accelerate your onboarding, you typically go through tutorials on how to use the various frameworks and tools that your team uses. I’d try to speedup the tutorials, and spend more time applying what you learned immediately. This would probably look like taking on small tasks to use some of the knowledge you gained. That way, you become more comfortable with the language/framework/processes!
- Work on high-impact/high-visibility items and take ownership. This is a bit tricky to do early on, especially if you don’t have as much experience. But, take the initiative! Come up with an idea where you think your team could use some improvement, and try to use the skills you learned from your tutorials to implement a solution (aim for the minimal viable product so you aren’t stuck on the refinement and details). Make sure you do your research and think of the various things that your team would value (ie. Are there security issues with your approach? How can we deploy and maintain this with ease? What are the next steps if we were to take this further?).
- Unblock yourself as best as you can, as quickly as you can. This means referring to documentation, resources, and articles early on. If you are still stuck, don’t just sit around! Ask for help and for thoughts once you’ve exhausted your options. After all, you are using up valuable time from your company (you are being paid to do this, so steward their money and time well).
- Put yourself in other people’s shoes. You’ll be working with various people (managers, product designers, business analysts, other software developers, etc.), and they all value different things. What you need to do is address those concerns as clearly and concisely as possible. Give them what they are looking for (and this means, doing the proper research ahead of time so you come prepared to answer questions)!
- If you are looking to do part-time work alongside full-time school, I highly recommend against it. This comes from the conviction of scripture:
You only serve one master!
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. — Matthew 6:24
You are meant to steward what you’ve been entrusted well, so do it to the best of your abilities. Don’t squander what you’ve been given!
Read Matthew 25:14–30 on The Parable of the Talents regarding this.
I hope that this reflection on my co-op experience has been insightful, that you have a better understanding of what grace is, how God has shown ultimate grace to us, how that completely transforms the way we respond with grace in the way we live our lives, and how that overflows into the workplace!
