real talk: things i wish i knew before intern 🗂️🫠💀

#BeReal talk; No pretentious stuff like on LinkedIn but my honest takeaways from my 22-weeks of internship.

As a blur and nerdy gurl stumbling into the corporate workplace for the first time, here’s #MyTop3 lessons i have learnt:

1. Workplace is NOT the same as your school.

It sounds ridiculously common sense right? I know. One of the biggest mistake i made was doing work with the same methods i use for studying.

When in school, we often have a very scheduled lifestyle and task is practically planned for you throughout the semester or school year. At workplace, everyone will be giving you everything to do. There is a need to prioritise what is more important and voice out when you are piled with too much work. I kept having the “chiong ah” mentality like how i was in school. Seeing examinations as the finishing line, and working my ass off to study for the paper. However, this does not work at internship! There is NO finishing line but just an endless pathway with occasional pit stops. I feel like if i were to step into the workplace with a different mentality. My experience would have been a whole lot better.

2. You cannot please everyone in the office.

I believe everyone just innately has at least a little people pleasing tendencies. I do too, but it has never been that big of a problem for me as I do not think I am a very people pleaser. Until I started internship and meeting wayyyyyyy more people than I have ever did. I feel like I saw the evil in people and saw more personalities that I have never meet in the past 13 years of my school life. It was quite scary to see how people do things to benefit themselves etc. As interns, we are literally at the lowest bottom of the pyramid and you are supposedly to suck up everything that was given to you. You literally have no say lol. I feel like because of how interns are supposed to be very 听话 (obedient), it is super easy to get stepped over. Some full-timers will make you feel like they are obviously more superior than you. It is what it is. Over time, the people pleasing mentality will grow even when you don’t realise it, because of how you need to “obey” to every seniors (literally all the full timers). It is also very easy to see conflicts between different full-timers and that would make your life very difficult as the “middle person”. I would say really just be professional at work and after work, it is your personal life. DO NOT ever mix both of them up together. (A costly mistake I made) I had this mentor that told me, “you need to compartmentalised everything. If not, you will just be a headless chicken running in this corporate world.”

3. Health is your top priority.

One of my takeaways from internship is that, work is really just one aspect of the many things in your life. When i was interning, i completely focused on work & neglected regular meetups with friends. I also stopped playing the sport i love & stop going for runs like how I used to. I stopped doing other part time jobs which I have before. (because i was interning) It felt as if my whole life was revolving around my internship. Even my family was neglected. I would reach home later than all of them (when they are already in bed) and leave house earlier than everyone. It felt as if I had nothing else left other than that job i was working at. I eventually burnt out. It was so bad that I did not even realise that I burnt out until the point where I just broke down and was not able to go through my routines as per usual. And because i stopped playing the sport, meeting my friends even after my internship ended, it feels like life changed 360 degrees. I stopped having interest in anything. It was so hard for me to get back to the lifestyle before intern and before i realised it, i was slowly isolating myself from others.

I know this sounds like an extreme story like isn’t it just work? how bad could you have burnt out? just chill ah. Yah. I did not pace myself properly and did not even recognise the signs early on. It took me months of recalibrating to finally being back to my usual self. If you read until here, the most important pointer from this entire post, is to take breaks when necessary. Doesn’t matter what toxic comments the office people can give, but really prioritise your health FIRST. I saw how interns took their entitled leave and was talked about so much behind their backs. Those were official leaves that were specified in the contract ok..

In retrospect, despite all the lesson, I would have interned at this company again & I do not regret anything throughout the 5 months. I am still extremely grateful for all the opportunities and amazing people that i have met along the way. I might have lucked out meeting so many good people along the way and I am always thankful that this company was my first corporate gurlie job. However, if i could turn back time, these will be #mytop3 things that i wish i knew before internship.