Starting Work
For summer associates, interns & new hires
Of all the audiences with whom I work, I enjoy none more than those that include students, summer associates, interns and new hires. Mind you, I enjoy working with established professionals, too. But give me a group of young people who are dipping their toes into the world of work for the very first time and who really want to succeed, well, it just doesn’t get much better.
Many of those young people have shared their stories with me, stories so memorable I doubt I’ll ever forget them.
There was the lawyer-in-training who stuttered, and in fact, the first consonant of her last name just happened to be a letter that caused her difficulty. How was she to handle introducing herself, she wanted to know. (Answer: Let people know up front that you stutter, and never forget that it’s no big deal. As I told the summer associate, “You stutter. I’m short. My ex-husband has elevated cholesterol levels. We all have something to contend with.’)
After another presentation, a group of young men surrounded me and together posited one question: Urinal etiquette? When I explained that I didn’t have much experience and needed them to elaborate, they did. “What do you do when a senior person follows you into the bathroom, and while you use the urinal, they proceed to ask a series of business questions?” (Answer: If it’s your boss, reply, don’t look down, and wash your hands afterward.)
I’ve encountered: narcoleptics, who worried about falling asleep during the course of a meeting; a young person with atrophied arm muscles that caused her to drop beverages at receptions creating the impression, she feared, that she had consumed too much alcohol; and a young person who, for religious reasons, found it uncomfortable to be in an enclosed environment--like a car--with a member of the opposite sex.
Recently, I’ve written “Starting Work,” the first book in my “100 Things You Need To Know Series.” The series reflects my belief that none of us can or needs to know everything about a given topic. However, if you know the 100 most important things, you’ll probably succeed. I can’t promise that every challenge an intern, summer associate or new hire might encounter will be resolved in “Starting Work,” but I feel certain readers will walk away with the knowledge that will help smooth their transition into the world of work.
You can find “Starting Work” on Amazon.com. Click below:
http://www.amazon.com/100-Things-You-Need-Know/dp/0989066401/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369993292&sr=1-1&keywords=mary+crane
What Do You Need to Know?
The 100 most important things you need to know you'll find in "Starting Work"!
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