Everybody IS dispensable so never let an affected attitude get the best of you.
The opportunity to learn loads may compensate for a small paycheck.
Trite, but it will always be in your favour to take things positively. Learn to enjoy, love and thrive on the things you must come to expect – rushing deadlines, rejected ideas, mornings, people and rules – taking them in your stride like a habit will give your productivity a wonderful momentum.
Suss a company out before any formal commitments are made during the interview – think of it as a demilitarised zone slightly skewed in the employer’s favour. Making an amicable impression should not take precedence over exercising good judgement. Is the workplace bursting with creative energy? Can you hang out with the crowd? Is your potential boss rude and stupid and old and SMELLY?? Does he, horrors, BORE you? Turn tail politely but immediately!
It is essential to assimilate (yes, conform. never expect to mould a workplace to your whims.) well into the office, but do not allow anything or anyone to make you feel uncomfortable in a personal way. If your superior being needlessly condescending and impolite gits at yer, leave. Uncomfortable with an employer keeping cctv tabs on you from his pervert private room? Leave. The last resort is the only resort. Your work and psyche will be affected if you are constantly surly and petulant.
Be receptive to new ideas, suggestions and advice, even the seemingly dubious. Never take criticism personally. Be mindlessly experimental but after that, discerning enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. Try strange things, so that you may always be in wonder. Beware merely hoarding through. inspiration is only precious when passed through the filters of your processes and thoughts, and crystallised into something original.
Be visionary. Creative groundwork can be foolish and fearless but it should birth a vision, grounded in a flawless concept (am i waxing too abstract?) plan the skeleton of your execution meticulously, but keep its tendrils fluid because you will have to improvise to changing contexts.
WORK. YOUR. ASS. OFF. And some more. Working smart does not mean working less, just means you milk each second you have for what it’s worth.
Allow for the fact that however eager-to-please, competent and tolerant you may be, there exist labyrinths of stupidity too dense to penetrate, too complex to navigate. Owners of these intellectual cesspools will give you much shit and frustration, so flee or forever hold your peace.
Try to love your job and colleagues.
PS: I never want to grow up T_T