Dear Graduate:
Thank you for visiting The Graduate’s Guide™. We’re glad you’re here!
I’ve written these career lessons to provide insights that I wish someone had shared with me when I was your age and just starting out in my new career. My goal is to make the beginning of your professional journey smoother and easier to navigate from the start. Entering the workforce can feel intimidating. You are expected to know how to act, communicate, and present yourself before anyone has actually shown you how. The lessons on book is meant to bridge that gap.
Through my real-world examples and honest advice, I hope to help you navigate those first few years. Whether you are beginning your first internship or stepping into your first full-time job, these pages are here to guide you toward becoming not just successful but respected, trusted, and indispensable. But before we get started, you need to do some homework. I bet you thought you were done with homeworkforever! Well, this is a different kind of homework, which I will abbreviate as HMWK.
This homework lays the foundation for all gracious workplace behavior discussed in this book. HMWK stands for humility, manners, work ethic, and kindness. A good dose of all will fill your soul and prepare you for what’s ahead in your life. This foundation is crucial to your success in the workplace because it provides you with not only the awareness necessary to establish solid relationships with others but also a strong sense of self.
Without this foundation, you will likely flounder in your new adult life, wondering why your coworkers respond to you the way they do, why it is difficult to make new friends, and why you don’t feel so happy. I want you to focus on HMWK first so that you can successfully apply the advice provided in this book.
The best way to start with HMWK is to stop and reflect on your life thus far. You can start with who raised you, whether it was a single mom, two parents, a grandmother, et cetera. Think about who these people are and how they positively shaped and also negatively affected your world. This may be one of the hardest things you will do in your life, because it will bring a flood of memories to the surface.
Some of those memories will not be pleasant and may even bring tears to your eyes, while some will bring outright joy to your heart. I recommend that you do this reflection now, as a young person starting your career, so that you can effectuate any behavior change necessary to move forward. God willing, you will have a long life ahead of you, and understanding who you are today, and who you really want to be going forward, requires this reflection. I experienced my reflection when I was starting my career, just like you are now. I would like very much to share my HMWK with you.
My HMWK
I was certainly raised to show humility, exhibit good manners, work hard, and be kind. A child of Greek immigrants, I grew up in a small house with a twin sister, older brother, and parakeets for pets. My parents worked in the kitchens of restaurants and fancy clubs in the area. The work required sweating, standing, and a lot of long hours, but they were always able to provide what we needed. We had a nice, clean home and good food on the table.
We did not do the big clothes shop before the start of the school year. Neither my brother, sister, nor I was handed a car at the age of sixteen (or any other age for that matter). We all worked in high school for spending money, whether it was for pizza and a movie or a prom dress. We had to complete our chores before we were allowed to hang with our friends on Saturdays. We went to church almost every Sunday.
My parents had very little extra money, so summer vacations were usually a three-day drive to my godparents’ home in Baltimore for a family visit and back home again. The house rules and the consequences of breaking them were rough on us. The strict environment was suffocating at times. We did not have much, but we had enough. My parents did the best they could with what they knew. But quite frankly, like many young people, when the time came, I was ready to go away to college and leave this part of my life in the rearview mirror.
My parents had three children in college at the same time, so we qualified for financial aid. My brother, sister, and I never thought of our educations as an entitlement. Instead, it was a gift and a blessing that none of us took for granted. We all worked while in school, sometimes two jobs. Eventually, we all received degrees from the University of Florida. Somewhere along the way I became a bit too enamored with myself and what I thought was a huge accomplishment. Here I was, a Greek girl from a town in which young ladies of my heritage did not go to college. They are typically married at the age of eighteen or so in somewhat arranged scenarios.
But I, Anna Pikounis, was pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a Major in Finance from the University of Florida at a time when business schools were male-dominated, and those women who did go to college were more drawn to traditionally female-oriented degrees, such as education, nursing, and liberal arts. Boy, I thought I was so smart and a real big deal.
Before I graduated, I interviewed with companies through the university’s Career Resource Center and was offered a great job in the management-training program with the largest bank in Florida at the time, Barnett Bank. I was going to be a respected commercial loan officer, wear fancy suits, and work in a tall marble building in downtown Tampa! Now, I had really arrived and had no need for the simple, humble beginnings of my life. I thought, Wow, look at me. I have accomplished this all on my own. I can live wherever I want, buy whatever I want, and make every single decision in my life without any influence from my parents ever again.
After graduation, I moved to Tampa to begin my new life. I found a cute apartment with trendy mauve carpet (hey, it was the ’80s), put a down payment on a used Chrysler LeBaron convertible, and bought some fancy suits from Burdines Department Store. I started working, as planned, and became immersed in the day-to-day monotony of waking up, getting ready for work, driving to work, working, driving home from work, eating dinner, watching a little TV, and starting the whole routine all over again the next day.
Sure, I had been independent in college and had taken care of myself for years, but it was still only college. There were always so many fun things to do and people to see, and my schedule, despite being filled with classes and work, had some flexibility. And when I really wanted to, I could go home for the weekend and be pampered by my mom with a Greek dinner of roasted leg of lamb and spanakopita on Sunday before going back to my college life.
But this was it.
This is what it really meant to work and be on my own in a new town with no family or friends. Just me and my big, fat “I have arrived” ego for comfort. I had a lot of time on my hands, which led me to the reflection I spoke of earlier. It was at this point that I began to realize that the foundation of everything I had accomplished thus far in my life was directly attributable to my parents.
My parents had been truly committed to raising three children and did not think of themselves while doing it. They did not belong to any fancy clubs. They saved every penny they could for college and retirement funds. The very few cars they owned were purchased with cash they had saved, and they kept those cars for ten to fifteen years. They did not have one credit card between them. They paid off their thirty-year mortgage in 1993 and never borrowed against the house. They raised us with solid morals and values. I’d never appreciated them or said thank you. This was an aha moment for me, and it changed my life.
In February 1990, about eight months after I had started working at the bank, I wrote a letter to my dad. It was his sixty-fourth birthday, and rather than just sending a birthday card, I wanted to express my gratitude for everything he and my mom had done for me and how much they had both played a part in who I’d become. It was true that I’d never taken the time to thank them—but I’d also never taken the time to forgive them. Remember, the reflection is for everything, the good and the bad. My good feelings about my parents far outweighed the bad, but it was important to acknowledge both. And then to move on from the bad.
Forgiveness gives you peace.
When I began writing this book, I asked my mom if she remembered the letter I’d written to my dad those many years ago. She not only remembered it; she had kept it.
I ask you to set aside some time for your own reflection, and your own beginnings. Now. You might want to go somewhere tranquil or stay in your quiet apartment. Maybe you decide to write in a journal or shout out to the entire universe. Whatever you do, be sure to take this time, and this step, seriously. In addition to this reflection on your beginnings, I ask you for one more reflection. Take time to reflect on yourself.
This will take some real honesty on your part. Do you embrace humility? Do you show good manners? Do you have a strong work ethic? Are you kind to others? I highly encourage you to pose these questions, and more, about how you show up for the people in your life, especially those whom you trust the most and who will give you an honest answer even when it hurts.
The answers to these questions will enable you to forgive yourself, start over with a clean slate, and experience a brand-new beginning in your professional career and adult life. Before proceeding with your career, strive to be at peace with yourself, with who you are, and with who you want to become.
Very truly yours,
Aunt Anna
