Corporate World Starter Kit: Career Advice | Bucks Insights

This is going to be your new home. You are most probably going to spend more time here than you do in your actual home. So you want to make your home as comfortable as possible. Let me just burst your bubble right away: your first job will hardly meet your expectations. It might be a very underwhelming or overwhelming experience depending on where you end up. Unfortunately, this is not featured in the curriculum of your studies.

You've worked hard studying those principles, acts, and standards at school or varsity, and when you get to the work environment, it's something different altogether. Why? Well, when you get to the work environment, you get to a specialized field. They take one section from what you studied and build a business model around that.

There are tiny tasks that look mundane—the ones you will get when you start your first job—that you won't understand at all, why they are done, and they just make no sense. And you might be asking yourself, after studying this hard, and getting to work ready for action, you are assigned to reading emails, highlighting them, creating folders, making lots of trips to the coffee shops for the seniors and managers, checking if the pile of pages are numbered correctly, etc. Same thing when you are experienced from other jobs: during your first few days or weeks (for some people it takes longer), you will be comparing this new work with the old work, and your old work will look much better than this new work. It's your mind fighting to adapt to change.

These above-mentioned seemingly mundane tasks do contribute to the overall product. It's just that you haven't figured it out yet. And it's okay. It will all make sense in due time.

The corporate journey is not a straight line. It is a story of patience, human dynamics, discomfort, ambiguity, and personal transformation.

In university, you can be a ghost. You can sit in the back of a lecture hall, skip a few classes, and as long as you pass the exam, you win. The corporate world is a different beast entirely. Here, you have a one-on-one relationship with a manager who sees you every day. You're going to report to them directly on a daily basis. Your performance isn't just a grade; it's your reputation.

Whether you are a first-time job entrant or someone who has had the same career for years and somehow feels stuck, you don't know what you're doing wrong that makes you get overlooked for promotions and general recognition. Your progress depends on your professional brand. It's time to audit your corporate world starter kit.

Before we get to the actual do's and don'ts, let's get this one out right away: be prepared psychologically to sit in one place for hours. Unlike at varsity, where you spend an hour attending the lecture and can choose after that lecture to go home and catch up on lecture recordings. This was my struggle at first. Luckily, I was living not far from the office, and I would go home to take a nap every day during lunch time. You shouldn't do this! It has bad consequences.

Most people don't fail at work because they lack skills. They fail because they don't understand the terrain. They don't know who to learn from and who to avoid. They don't recognize the patterns that separate people who advance from people who plateau.

Here is how to navigate the jungle without getting eaten alive.

People To Stay Away From: Energy Vampires & Career Killers

There are people that will hurt your career trajectory without you even knowing until it's too late.

1. Chronic Complainers

You know them. Their "good morning" comes with complaints. By the time you get to your desk, your energy is already depleted. They might stop by your workspace to unload. The time you could spend improving your skills gets consumed by their negativity.

Complainers normalize stagnation. It's worth recognizing this early.

2. People Who Call Their Manager "Your Mama" or "Your Daddy"

You leave your parents at home. At work, you call people by their names. People who use these terms often don't realize how it signals they've given up on professional growth. Their actions don't align with advancement.

They've settled. That's fine for them, but if you're trying to progress, note the difference in mindset.

3. People Who Take Hour-Long Lunches Every Day

Unless you're required to take a full lunch hour (like in call centres), there's usually something productive you could be doing. Thirty minutes to eat, thirty minutes to develop yourself—update your notes, read something relevant, work on a skill, or anything that gives you an advantage in this role.

Every choice compounds. Small decisions about how you spend time add up over months and years.

4. Weekend Warriors

People who spend work time talking about weekend plans, sharing photos, and asking what you did. Your personal life has its place, but when it dominates work conversations, it pulls focus away from professional development. Unless you work in entertainment or promotions, boundaries between personal and professional life help maintain momentum.

These are the people that won't get you when you tell them that you spent some time catching up on your work notes.

5. Office Relationship Analysts

People who regularly discuss dating life at work. It's fine to listen if someone shares, but if this becomes constant conversation, it just adds irrelevant information to your career progression, taking up space and time you could use differently working on what's relevant to your career.

6. Managers (As Friends)

There's a loyalty dynamic with friends that doesn't translate well to manager relationships. Your manager reports to someone else. They might be instructed to promote someone over you. If you've built a deep friendship, that professional decision feels like personal betrayal.

You'll still see them every day. You can't simply end the relationship. Keeping some professional distance makes the dynamics clearer.

7. People Who Are Close Friends With Managers

Similar dynamics apply. Some relationships are genuine, but some people use access strategically. They might take credit for your work or position themselves advantageously in the manager's eyes.

8. Salary Obsessors

People who constantly discuss compensation and want to know what you're earning. Everyone gets paid differently based on experience, negotiation, and timing.

Constant comparison keeps you focused on others instead of your own development.

9. Credit-Snatchers

You'll usually spot them within a month. They are invisible when a project fails but move to the front when it succeeds. When someone does good work, they don't mention who did it. When someone makes a mistake, everyone knows. Watch how they speak about others' work—it tells you exactly what they'll do to yours.

These people benefit from others' work without acknowledgment.

10. Manager's Favorites

People who are unavailable to help until the manager is present. They perform helpfulness publicly but aren't genuinely collaborative.

People To Stay Close To: Your Secret Weapons

There are also people who show up exactly when you need guidance. They help you see what you can't see yourself.

1. The Skilled But Overlooked

People who get passed over for promotion because they lack social skills, but who are exceptional at their work. They spend most of their time solving problems and improving. They get paid well because they deliver real value through technical mastery.

There's a lot to learn from watching how they work.

2. People Who Offer Help Without Being Asked

Someone from another department, a cleaner, or an intern. They greet you, show you where things are, and share knowledge about unwritten rules, good lunch spots, and travel routes.

These people naturally help others navigate. Building relationships with them gives you better visibility of the environment.

3. The IT Squad

You'll work with them when you're starting—setting up access, sorting systems. Some people let that relationship end there, but that's a missed opportunity.

When you're working on a deadline and your system crashes, having a good relationship with IT means immediate help without formal processes. You can pop your IT contact person a message or give them a quick call, and they get you sorted right away, without logging the tickets and waiting forever for your ticket to be resolved. By then you've missed the deadline, and this works against your performance.

They're often treated as invisible. Being someone who sees and values their work creates genuine connection.

4. Someone Who's Resigning

This person has knowledge they're leaving behind. Be the person who gets these resources from them. They'll often share freely because they won't need it where they're going. You can learn why they're leaving, who to watch out for, and who to learn from. They might introduce you to people they respect.

Someone leaving usually has no reason to polish the truth. They can show you the real landscape.

5. Security Guards

From forgetting your access card to needing a favor after hours, the security guards and cleaners are the heartbeat of the building. Greet them by name.

Your Navigation Tools: Things to Do

1. Dress Well

"Dress for your next role." When you dress for your next role, you subconsciously start performing at that level. It signals to yourself and others where you're headed.

2. The "Invisible" Value

Hold the elevator door. Pick up paper on the floor. Help someone with boxes.

Small acts build character. Character builds reputation. Reputation opens paths you can't force open.

Greet everyone, from the cleaner to the CEO. You don't just work for a company; you become the value within the building.

3. Arrive Early

Morning is a good time to review notes, organize thoughts, and prepare questions. Arriving at the same time as your manager doesn't give you this advantage.

When you're learning, you need extra time.

4. Develop Specialized Knowledge

Find something you can become really good at—something that only you (or maybe one other person) does well. This becomes leverage.

This is your unique value. When everyone else takes the obvious path, you've developed something specific.

5. Volunteer for Difficult Work

When extra help is needed, especially during crises, step forward. Crisis moments build skills and reputations faster than regular performance.

6. Build Your Tolerance

You'll encounter difficult people—colleagues, clients, or maybe your manager. Building the capacity to handle difficult interactions without breaking down or lashing out is invaluable.

There's no parent at work to protect you. You need to develop the ability to navigate difficulty independently.

7. Maintain Professional Boundaries at Social Events

Attend work outings, but remember they're still work events. Your behavior builds or damages your professional image even in casual settings.

8. Find Joy in the Process

There's no point doing any of this if you're miserable. Enjoyment comes from feeling competent. You won't feel competent immediately. In the beginning, you'll feel useless while learning new systems, processes, and people.

That's normal. Be patient with yourself while staying consistent.

Obstacles to Avoid

1. Office Gossip

Drama makes your environment uncomfortable and affects performance. This is where you'll spend most of your time. Making it comfortable matters.

2. Expecting Immediate Mastery

Be patient with yourself. Real learning takes time.

3. Expecting Immediate Recognition

Focusing too hard on promotion and recognition early leads to burnout. You're there to build yourself—skills, experience, and reputation. That investment pays off over time.

4. Office Relationships

Romantic relationships at work add emotional complexity where you need focus and clarity. It's simpler to keep that separate.

5. Salary Comparisons

Everyone is on a different journey. Focusing on what others get paid only leads to discouragement. Focus on making yourself so useful that your leverage for negotiation becomes undeniable.

Building Something That Lasts

When you're starting out, your CV is basic—school achievements and extracurricular activities. These matter initially, but what you're building toward is a CV filled with actual work accomplished.

Eventually, school achievements fade in importance. Your grades matter less. They get replaced by demonstrable experience.

You're given a blank canvas. Early on, your CV might feel empty, padded just to fill space. After years of adding experiences and skills, you'll have the opposite problem—fitting everything into two pages.

This is your opportunity to become someone different. Someone with substance. Someone trusted with important work.

Every experience adds to that canvas. Every difficult person you navigate. Every crisis you volunteer for. Every early morning. Every small consideration.

Progress isn't just about promotions and salary. It's about becoming someone capable of handling harder challenges. Someone who doesn't need perfect conditions. Someone who can improvise when things break. Someone who continues when it's difficult.

Keep Moving Forward

These are the skills that require practice. You won't master them immediately. You'll make mistakes. But once developed, they become proof that you have been in the muddy dungeon and you fought your way out.

When you're unsure and help isn't available, make your best judgment and move forward. Mistakes teach powerfully.

You'll have moments that feel catastrophic. You'll make mistakes in meetings. You'll miss deadlines. You'll face system failures at critical times.

It will feel terrible. You'll want something familiar and safe. That's natural.

Some people choose the familiar over the uncertain. They stop progressing because staying put feels safer.

But you're reading this, which suggests you're choosing differently.

Stay consistent. There will be moments when you can't see the path forward. When you're tired and questioning your choices.

In those moments, remember: the way through is forward.

Keep going. You'll get there. Up and To The Right.