Although I pale sometimes at the self-centeredness that such a college experience encourages, I believe the benefits from intellectual, psychological, and even moral growth far outweigh the unpleasant selfishness that often is expressed. Nonetheless, the elevated judgment of one's self-worth and the high aspirations that school encourages do contribute to some disappointment with work and life in the first years after school. We explore some of the causes of this disillusionment and how you might counter them. First let's look at one ambitious young woman's unhappy experience.
The Disillusioning of Kim Webster
Kimberly Webster had it all-brains, beauty, and athletic talent. When she was twelve, her father had begun coaching her community girls' Softball team and he took great joy in throwing the ball to Kim as hard as he could, while she was able to return it even harder. One of his most cherished mementos of Kim's athletic career is the summary of her eighth grade season in junior high school when she batted .850!
Kim's athletic success continued in high school; she was all-county in both field hockey and lacrosse, attracting the attention of numerous college coaches. She loved the feeling of just tipping an opponent's stick as they were about to shoot-and herself powering through an attempted block to score for her team. The agony of running and the weightlifting were all justified by those moments of pure joy. In addition, Kim was an exceptionally talented writer who delighted in writing outlandish stories and humorous critiques of her numerous male and female friends. She accepted a scholarship to the esteemed Kane School of Journalism at Midwestern State University. Perhaps her most outstanding attribute was her impressive organization and self-discipline. She knew what she wanted to do and was able to structure her time and energy to accomplish her athletic, social, and academic goals.
College was a continuation of her success story. She majored in journalism while also taking management and marketing courses in the business school. She received eight varsity letters, was named all-league in field hockey and lacrosse, serving as captain of the latter team (she even received one vote for All-American). She was elected to the senior honor society for all-around contributions to the school.
As senior year progressed, Kim interviewed several advertising and public relations firms. While in college she had worked in alumni relations and athletic fundraising so she had good experience in dealing with the public through correspondence and telephone. In addition, because of her athletic visibility, she had valuable alumni contacts in the industry, so she got interviews at several firms. She finally joined the advertising department of Hayfield's, a large multiple outlet regional department store chain.
Although not considered as prestigious as the prominent advertising firms, Hayfield's seemed to promise greater opportunity to quickly learn the fundamentals of catalog promotion and newspaper and electronic media advertising. The advertising department vice president Dexter Moore, happy to land a rare graduate of the university, assured Kimberly that she would have a private office, would be shifted between different sections, and would receive a salary review after six months. Susan Corman, the long-term Hayfield's employee who was her initial supervisor in catalog traffic control, promised that she would be sent to a computer training program, would have her own PC and would soon be able to work directly with the printer on galley and color separation approvals. Kim began work with great anticipation that in spite of Hayfield's rather shabby offices, she would be doing real work that would allow her to learn. She moved into a nice apartment with two friends and bought a new Volkswagen GT1.
Unfortunately, Kim was soon disillusioned. It bothered her that after three months she still had not received her own work station or computer, but had to borrow the desk of whoever was out of the office. Although she enjoyed the challenge of teaching herself how to use the computer, she couldn't understand why she was never sent to the training program on page design and desktop printing. What bugged her even more, however, was the routine and repetitive space calculation and manufacturer billing she had to do for the catalogs. It primarily involved arithmetic calculations (and Kim had avoided all mathematics courses in college). Hayfield's would prepare periodic catalogs and special promotional flyers that would be mailed to customers in various area codes. The manufacturers whose products appeared in each catalog would reimburse Hay-field's for printing and mailing costs depending on economic potential of the different customer areas and their products' share of the total catalog space. It was Kim's job to make these calculations, which she did basically sitting alone in the office. She rarely got to deal with the page designers, copywriters, product manufacturers, or printers.
Kim's supervisor Susan checked her work very closely and literally would peek over her shoulder at least ten times a day, yet would say little about what was being planned next. On a rare occasion when Susan asked Kim to substitute for her at a printer meeting, Sue neglected to tell Kim about special requirements on that particular catalog with the result that two pages featuring Estee Lauder and Adrienne Vittadini products were printed with the wrong colors. Since these two firms are extremely concerned about image, they refused to pay for their portion of the catalogs. Susan was very upset with Kimberly and yelled at her in front of the vice president. Kim kept her cool, but it took all her self-discipline to refrain from echoing Johnny Paycheck's song "Take this Job and Shove it" while quitting to go to the ski slopes which she so badly missed (along with her friends) since graduating.
After seven months when the half-year point for her promised salary review had passed with no action, Kim went to Mary Pinelli, the human resources manager, to whom she had talked when she was hired. Mary told her, however, that human resources could not compel the advertising department to change her salary and that perhaps Kim should wait until she had been there a year.
Still unhappy after eight months, Kim asked for an appointment with Dexter Moore, the vice president, to discuss the situation. After a three-week delay due to his traveling, Kim finally voiced her complaints about the absent performance review, salary reassessment, personal work station and computer and, most of all, Susan's overbearing supervision and inadequate sharing of information.
Dexter Moore assured Kim that he had heard nothing but good reports on her performance and that he had been impressed with her work on several occasions (what "occasions" they were, Kim couldn't imagine). The only complaints he had received had been when Kim had taken unexpected vacation or sick days on some Fridays and Mondays. Moore said that the advertising office needed a complete physical overhaul before they could fit in additional private work stations, but that he was hoping to have the funds for this in next year's budget. He also said that the human resources department had cancelled Hayfield's training agreement with a computer service firm so no courses had been offered for the last six months. He added, however, that Susan had told him she was impressed with Kim's self-developed computer skills. With regard to a salary adjustment, he said that a 5 percent increase was the most that human resources would approve at this time. Finally, Moore suggested that Kim be more patient with Susan Corman, a very loyal and valued Hayfield employee who cared deeply about advertising and about getting things right.
Kimberly tried to accept Moore's advice but began to be more assertive in making suggestions on catalog design. On several occasions she corrected some copywriter errors and even rewrote copy to make it more "playful" just before Susan would take it to the printer. Usually, however, the printed page came out closer to the original copy. In one instance Kim prepared a series of dummy newspaper ads that were very modernistic-over 90 percent was blank white space in contrast to the telephone directory appearance of most Hayfield ads. Her ideas were rejected with a comment that they were "pretty," but that Hayfield's traditional customers wanted more factual information.
When complaining to her parents about her unhappy experience at the department store, she said she was considering interviewing for another job that she had heard about at a recent meeting of the metropolitan public relations professional association in which she was active. She then asked, "Why did all those people make so many promises and then not keep them? Promises about an office, a computer, training, job rotation, and salary increase? Why did they say they wanted my creative ideas and then reject them all? Why do they all lie?"
Why was Kim Unhappy?
Kim, like all of us, takes a self-centered view of her job search and first position at Hayfield's. In her eyes, Hayfield's "lied" to her about what they would do for her. If her perception of things is wrong (factually she is probably correct), others saw Kim as less unique than she considered herself and were taking a longer-term view by testing whether she really wanted to be in advertising or at Hayfield's. But, Kim understandably was in a hurry.
All her life, Kim had found that hard work and supreme effort would bring success-stardom in athletics and good academic performance. Shots blocked, goals scored, and test grades were all concrete measures of what she had accomplished. Her need for achievement was strongly stimulated and satisfied by such feedback, not to mention recognition and attention from others. She thought the repetitive calculations at Hayfield's to be beneath her. Worst of all, any extra effort (such as correcting writer errors, rewriting copy, and proposing new styles) were systematically rejected.
In one sense she was correct: Kim's abilities are well above and beyond these particular tasks. But she is also a bit of a snob in denigrating the importance and difficulty of doing even simple tasks correctly. And the bad experience with the Lauder and Vittadini pages in the Hayfield catalog, although perhaps not her fault, illustrates the importance of getting details right. Still, Hayfield's presented a particularly frustrating situation for an ambitious person-repetitive and non-challenging work, overly close supervision, no autonomy, and mainly negative feedback. No wonder she quit after little more than a year.
Kim asked her parents why her superiors at Hayfield's "lied" to her about the personal work station, computer, training, rotation, and salary review. Truth and falsehood of course are sometimes hard to tie down; but a generous interpretation of Dexter Moore and Susan Corman is that they were not "lying" so much as administratively disorganized and excessively concerned with landing Kim as an employee. No previous graduate of Kane School of Journalism had ever come to work at Hayfield's and so during recruiting and hiring they tended to say yes to whatever Kim wanted. Either Dexter or Susan didn't have the resources to deliver on their promises or they were so disorganized that they never recorded what they had promised. By not following through, however, they irredeemably lost Kim's trust.
Hayfield's would probably argue that everything would have come Kim's way if only she had been more patient. The non-delivered promises were delayed because of short-run budgetary problems and longer-run renovation and reorganization plans. They were pleased with her performance (except for her unanticipated absences, usually when she went skiing!) and even happy with her rebuffed creative initiatives, but they wanted to be sure she understood Hayfield's conservative customers and tradition before giving her more responsibility and autonomy. Most of all they wanted to see if she was really committed to Hayfield's, as were Moore and Corman who were referred to as "lifers."
But Moore and Corman were of a different generation and background than Kim. Coming from their more limited and modest situations, Hayfield's represented security, predictability, and community prestige along with moderately challenging and rewarding work. For Kim, however, economic security and social prestige were not goals; they were just assumed because she had always had them. And Hayfield's came to represent sacrificing her dreams for a challenging and successful career and of course individual stardom.
Kim is unique, but her dissatisfaction with her first job and the first years after college is a common complaint. As General Motors' director of personnel development puts it: "The very best students tend to be more willing to leave an employer if that employer isn't providing them with opportunities to fulfill themselves." Let's examine some of the reasons that the best and brightest often become frustrated and unhappy in this period.
