3 Common Mistakes and Pitfalls We All Make in the Office

"Your best teacher is your last mistake."

Ralph Nader, Activist and Attorney

Photo Credit: Free From Wix

No one is perfect. At the end of the day, we all make mistakes and do things that sometimes we wish we didn’t. Starting off in a new career environment, we are prone to many mistakes. Throughout my experiences during my different co-ops, I found that one of the biggest mistakes I made, was running into a roadblock when it came to asking for help. We all want to be independent, but we often forget that asking for help from a mentor is a sign of strength rather than weakness. Whether the mentor is our direct boss or a fellow coworker, we all need some guidance at some point. A mentor is someone who will be an advocate for you, and teach you the ways to eventually become an advocate for yourself, and learn how to build character through the mistakes. We might think to ourselves that we might look dumb or might be asking too much of our mentors when we ask for help. In reality, we as humans are programmed to over-complicate things, and it shows humility and strength when stepping up to the plate to ask for guidance, because we don’t want to act as if we know everything.

“We all want to be independent, but we often forget that asking for help from a mentor is a sign of strength rather than weakness.”

I will admit, I used to get extremely nervous to do things that I wasn’t sure how to do in the first place. Something I considered to be intimidating at first was the copy machine. As silly as it sounds, when you are in an office space, where the cubicles connect and someone across the floor can hear you cough, the last thing you want is to make a mistake and have it be recognized by everyone. At this point, I was the intern who couldn’t make copies. Before corporate, I didn’t know you could copy pages by inserting them into the paper tray above the copy machine to copy packets at a time, instead of copying individual pages of packets. This incident came into play when my employer asked what I was doing, and I simply told her I wasn’t sure. Instead of making five copies of packets, I individually copied each page. Sometimes we need to realize it is more important to ask for help when we aren’t sure, than assume something.

The second mistake that is commonly made is lack of communication. Millennials nowadays are glued to technology, and as a result we sometimes we don’t know how to convey our emotions and words through face-to-face conversation. Some individuals cannot communicate their words simply because they are nervous. The goal here is to become an individual who can be forward with questions and open to feedback. We don’t need to rely on technology to do our communicating for us. Instead, we need to take responsibility and rely on our voices to convey messages.

The third common mistake is running away from our fears. Getting to know your fellow coworkers could be considered a fear, and it was definitely in my top three fears in the workplace. Unfortunately, having an existing stigma about being an intern can take a toll on you, and could possibly prevent you from making those connections simply because you don’t think you have the status to do so. But for some of us, conflict is a common fear. The thought of avoiding conflict comes off as easier in our heads sometimes rather than dealing with the situation right there and then. When there is a conflict, be honest and have patience.