First Day of School, Redux

Tomorrow I start a new job.  As required by all First moments, this requires both a new outfit and a blog post.  I remember standing on the front steps in Arkansas, letting mom take my picture with my adored blue satchel before heading to my first day of kindergarten. This is my clumsy attempt at similar documentation, this time with the outfit sprawled across my bed, no jewelry chosen as of yet (probably just pearl studs), shoes overly shiny:

I'll be overdressed, I'm sure.  But I'm overdressed for the majority of things (parties, grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, running) so that's really just par for the course. 

I was terrified when I started at the Commission.  I had a hunch I'd be good at the position for which I was hired but I had no real proof to support such an instinct.  Law degrees are nifty things but I don't know that they prove much aside from an ability to work tirelessly (often in pursuit of lost causes) and smile optimistically in the face of awe-inspiring debt. 

A large portion of my "hunch" was buried in genuine interest for the subject matter at issue, and overall geekiness over subject matter is probably attractive for most employers.  I spent the first several months googling terms, laws, and acronyms, and mispronouncing any number of parties/entities (I'm sorry, but an entity termed MISO should be pronounced like the soup, just to save a lot of people a lot of embarrassment).  But I do think after three years, I was decent at my job.  It, like most positions, would be a job one would get better at with time and experience, so I still had enormous amounts to learn from those who'd been there far longer than I.  But I felt like I was helpful, a benefit to my employer, which is really all you're working towards when you're young and inexperienced.

Of course, having only reached that point of feeling helpful maybe a year ago, I'm now right smack dab where I was three years ago. I am now looking square into the expected experience one has with a new job: weeks, possibly months, of feeling like a burden.  I think most employers hire for potential.  While I know that aspects of my experience thus far, in addition to my education, were what led my new employer to make the offer, I have to assume a good part of making those decisions is simply a hunch on their part that the person in question seems capable of learning the ropes quickly and being helpful sooner rather than later.

There are many, many things that I learned while serving the Commission.  Many of them were things that would provide no benefit to anyone outside utility regulation.  But some are broader, more general, not only about the energy sphere and all its eccentricities (that's the nice way of saying "craziness"), but about Work and what it means to be good at what one does.  I was surrounded by experts and those that were best at their chosen niche were those who readily admitted when they did not know something and immediately sought to remedy that deficit.  It seems like a simple skill, the admission of ignorance, but that balance with a determination to fill in the vacuum with knowledge, is a powerful tool.  And, really, the only method by which one excels at anything.

Abraham Lincoln (I think) said, "whatever you are, be a good one." I think that's my goal. "Great" would be awesome, one of these days, but for now I'm just looking to be good, helpful, someone without whom the day and the work would be a bit tougher. Until then, I'll just have to dress the part, and pray for teachers as brilliant as those I left behind.