Wow, JobMine Round 1 is over already? Woopy do da day, I hope everyone gets employed but at the same time at good mentally fulfilling jobs, full of challenges and work. These are all wishes with good intentions because the worst kind of job you can get other than in toxic environments is in a toxic environment where there is nothing to do and you have an absentee employer. What do I mean by an absentee employer or supervisor? I mean someone who is never there, comes in late in the morning, leaves early in the day and takes two to three hour lunch breaks. Wow, employers like that must be great, it isn’t. You have to figure out how to kill 8 hours a day with only an hour lunch break and surrounded by others in their cubicles all also trying to kill 8 hours that day. So, how do you communicate with this absentee supervisor who is never there for you and gives no suggestions for improvement? Who knows, maybe this page of print holds the answer.
So now that we have established that the supervisor shows up late and goes on extended lunch breaks, how do you ask him for work? You just keep on asking, and become so keen and so annoying that they give you a really mundane task. If every time you get up to ask your supervisor for work and they are in a tele-conference or conferencing through the telephone, then you should leave them alone but try and send an email asking for work. Remember with an absentee supervisor, you need to try to keep your line of communication open even if the boss won’t respond. Of course you can ask everyone else in the office for work eventually making the entire office stink of your keenness and give up. Resign yourself to your cubicle and sit in defeat as you wait out the minutes of your life – oops, I meant work day.
One more upbeat suggestion would be to always leave a note, on your desk, saying you went to the bathroom. Take this opportunity to wander around the facilities and explore the premise. If anyone asks just tell them you are the new intern and got lost. The goal of this exploration mission is to find the nicest, most unoccupied and well maintained bathroom you can. With this knowledge, you can go and take a nap, this means you will be able to nap in peace every morning right before work for an even more refreshed work day. These are pretty much the worst suggestions I am giving you right now, actually co-op student, do your best. In fact, do everything in this article the opposite of what I am tell you to do.
Now always ask for work, and when you are assigned a task, do it with vigor and an open mind. From the most mundane to the most complicated, there is no task too small or too big. At least that is the attitude with which you should attack the task you were just assigned, and hope you are assigned to help with a project. That means you are going to have something to do all the time. Always find something related to keep you busy: for example start writing a work term report terms before they are due so that you don’t have to later, or, with so many professional engineers around you with practical experience, asking questions, which would make you look very keen to learn and interested in the field. Boo yeah networking and leaving a good impression with possible future interviewers. That is doing work right there. Then depending on the work that is given, take note of it and learn from it. Use that stuff to pad out you resume, you organized files? Administrative and organization skills in a professional engineering workplace. You sit and do nothing at your desk all day but no one notices? Strong work ethic and ability work alone. Remember that everything has an upside to it.
In summary, don’e a dick. Be rearing to work even when your supervisor is not there, and be responsible. Ask the other people around you for work, they probably have something they have been meaning to do but been putting off because it’s so stupid that even a monkey could do it. That is when you become that monkey and do the really easy task. You are there to work not there to reddit and play 2048 all day. Have some sort of related side project. The work experience will make you stand out from the rest of the people when you graduate. So don’t be so negative about your employers and your co-op term.
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