Many of you might have part time jobs, whether they are on campus or off, seasonal or during the whole year. While a big reason for working that job is the paycheck and the ability to have some degree of financial independence, another reason might also be the work environment.
You might apply for a job at a place where your friends work, or where you know the supervisor is understanding and supportive of your academic commitments, or where there is a flexible work schedule or an environment you know you’ll enjoy.
But what do you do when those aspects of your workplace you thought were permanent change? Perhaps the staff you work with rotates, or your supervisor changes for the 4th time in 3 years, or some elements of your job expectations are turned upside down.
Change is inevitable, in your personal life, in school, and even in the workplace. When the changes are unexpected or seem unfair, or just come after a long string of other changes, it might be hard to deal with them, and you might not know how to respond.
Here are some things I’ve learned after seeing many changes in my workplace over the past two years.
You can’t fight the changes.
This is hard to accept, especially when you believe the changes were unfairly made, but usually whoever makes the decisions isn’t going to go back on their choices once they’re made. While voicing concerns is definitely necessary, don’t expect your complaints to reverse the decisions and bring about new results. Nevertheless, you should maintain a positive attitude, especially if you intend to make any appeals, but be prepared to be struck down despite your best efforts to fight back.
You’ll be okay even without the thing that’s being replaced.
You might have those co-workers you can’t imagine life without, or have a supervisor that’s been crucial to your performance in that particular position, but you’ll be okay without them. There will be new co-workers and a new supervisor, new support systems will form in place of the old ones. If you had a great relationship with the old co-workers, you may never have as good of a relationship with the new ones, but you’ll find new support systems and ways to manage without the old ones.
You can always rely on yourself.
If you can’t count on anything else, at least you know you can count on yourself. You can be the knowledge bank your old friend and co-worker was. You can be the one to provide the stories, experience or humor that maybe your supervisor did before. You can step up to the plate and fill in the gaps of the things you are losing from your staff or workplace. When everything and everyone else changes, you will always have yourself.
Approach the change with a positive mindset.
If you initially respond with negativity and with a mindset of fighting the change, you might never appreciate the change. However, you need to get over that initial reaction and start thinking, what can I learn from this? Or how can I grow from the change? One common interview question is how you respond to obstacles in your current jobs. You can discuss the constant changes you’ve seen and your adaptability to different work environments.
Not all changes are bad ones.
It might be hard to see it in the moment, but you just might be getting something better than what you had before. You might not even see it right away, but it is possible that you will like the new environment better than the old one.
There will never be a time or place without change.
Someone once said, the only thing that’s constant is change. No matter where you go, or what aspect of life you look at, you will always face changes. 4 months from now, your life might be very different than what it is today, but 4 months ago, you might not even have anticipated your life today to be what it is.