Week One

This week’s sessions were so interesting and at the same time scaring. I mentioned scaring because most of the speakers sounded like; it is not easy to cope the first few months in the work place. Judging from the points, which were, highlighted in the sessions such as critical thinking, flexibility, attitude, and communications skills (Verbal and written), etc, which are expected from us in the work place. I felt like the world of work training programme is beneficial for us in assisting us to be prepared and be able to cope with the hard times awaiting for us the first few months in the work place.

In this introductory week, though we didn’t cover much work, for me it was a wake up call. I appreciated all the speeches, which were presented. During Gordon’s session, the idea of flexibility really stroked me. It clicked to me that knowing everything the first few months at the work place of which I believe most of us have in order to prove our competence might lead to getting stuck in the task given. On the other hand, the idea of knowing nothing can also give an impression to the employers that you are useless to the organisation. Thus, flexibility, willingness to learn, learning through mistakes and admitting the mistakes and working over them might help to make one’s life easy as the new employee. Dan Sonnerberg’s also indicated that making assumptions on the given task might lead one into wrongdoing. Therefore, asking questions before making a decision can be a good idea and at the same time could prevent you from making serious mistakes. Therefore, flexibility in a work place could save one from creating wrong impressions about you and also learn from others.

The other interesting point for me was about thinking beyond yourself or working in teams. Most of us believe in competition or doing better than others in everything. I liked it when Lesley emphasized on working as teams and not trying to compete with each other but being a resource for each other. This happened during Lesley’s session, when the task was assigned to two groups and the other group was trying to compete with the other by finishing faster than the other team. I believe this point changed many people ‘s attitude of being better than the other. I assume this point has also motivated us in helping each other in sharing information, views, commenting on each other’s work with the intention of helping one to improve in communicating and writing skills.

However, one observation about this week’s sessions is that, there were some contradictions from some speakers. Whilst all the speakers emphasised on being ourselves, or being real and not pretending to be someone else, there were some contradiction in terms of dressing for employment. Some speakers emphasised on being real even in terms of your dressing, arguing that you need to dress what you feel comfortable with and the employers has to take you the way you are. On the contrary, other speakers mentioned of dressing according to the requirement of the job description. I found this confusing; any way the decision lies in me.
Nevertheless, I appreciate and enjoyed every session for this week and looking forward to the other following weeks.