In my last article, I wrote that many co-op students panic at the thought of committing to a full-time, “real world” job. However, we also sometimes have trouble assuming responsibility in the workplace.

For many co-op students, such as myself, our first co-op term is also our first “real” job. Before working as a communications assistant at a school board, I worked as a cashier at three different stores (including McDonald’s) and as a part-time sales assistant at a brokerage firm.

While the sales assistant position sounds a bit more glamourous than the others, I simply worked for a family friend two days a week filing or mailing out letters. While I learned a lot, I was essentially a “gopher.” In these bottom-feeder jobs, we have no authority whatsoever. We are told when to arrive, where to stand, what to say, when to eat and when to leave. In some cases, we even have to inform our superiors when we leave to use the bathroom.

While toiling away at these McJobs, I craved autonomy. I even secretly withheld the quarters with poppies on them from the customers I didn’t like and gave them to the nice ones. It made me feel like I had some sort of control. And yet, when I began my first co-op term in May, I was scared to take on real responsibility.

How could I adapt my bottom-feeder mindset to an entry-level position and become more self-sufficient in the workplace?

Personally, I found taking little steps to ease myself into it helped. First of all, I wore clothes that made me feel powerful. Donning a McDonald’s visor can easily take your confidence down a few notches, but heels or a tie can go a long way.

Secondly, I started pushing the boundaries I had learned from my previous jobs. If I was hungry at 10 a.m., I pulled out a snack. No one stared in awe of my bold behaviour, and this reassuring discovery gave me the confidence to do it again.

Obviously, however, you will be given more responsibility in an entry-level job than just the ability to decide to eat when you’re hungry.

When I began my co-op term at the school board this summer, I had difficulty adjusting to the new power dynamics. I was caught between being a helpless child and an independent adult. This school board was where I attended school for 13 years; most of my teachers, even my elementary teachers, still work there. On top of that, my father works there and people I thought I’d never met before approached me in the hallway (and, once, in the bathroom) to tell me how cute I was when I was five.

Despite all that, I had authority. Not a lot, of course, but I did have to call my old high school and give “orders” to the secretaries. That was almost as strange as having to call a graduating student from my old high school. I have friends in her class, but when I called her, she sounded like a child speaking to an authority figure. My head was reeling.

And yet, I learned to feel powerful even in jeans, to eat when hungry (although, even at the end of the summer, I would catch myself waiting until someone else got their lunch out before beginning to eat mine – old habits die hard), and I even learned to make more major decisions about various projects and assignments on my own.

And on my final day of work, the cashier in the cafeteria gave me a quarter with a poppy on it. Maybe the real world isn’t so bad after all.