The following is a true story of an LBFP fellow’s less than ideal introduction to her U.S. workplace experience and how she dealt with it. Her story provides some examples both of simple things that a company can do to make the fellowship experience better, and of good strategies for turning around situations where initial realities do not meet expectations—situations that unfortunately
sometimes happen in LBFP, as in life in general.

I was very disappointed and honestly very frustrated during the first week of my company placement. I thought about writing to AMIDEAST but then I thought I should wait for the second week to see how things went. It’s a lot better now but I still wanted to write and give my feedback.

The main problem was that the company was not expecting me so early. They received confirmation of my start date only a week before I arrived, and had previously thought that it would be several weeks later. They also assumed that I was coming on an “internship” rather than a “fellowship.” I don’t mind the term, except that I am not a student fresh out of school, and the word “internship” apparently gave them the impression that I was.

I had a lot of idle time that first week. My manager/mentor was off the first day so she had arranged for someone to look after me, but the other person didn’t do very well and I got my computer only later in the week, leaving me seriously handicapped for the first couple of days!

When I met my mentor on the second day, she thought that I was from Asia and introduced me that way. When I corrected her, telling her what country I am actually from and that it is in the Middle East, she was not able to make the distinction! I felt sad that she did not know where I was from and thought she could at least have done an Internet search to learn something about my country. As soon as I sat down with her, I gave her a bit of a geography lesson!

I understand that usually the first week of a new job is not easy. It is usually slow. The key point that was lacking here was in being prepared. However, I will just consider it part of the experience—these things happen. When I met my manager's manager, she had made the effort to read my profile and looked up my country and made me feel important!

All in all, my manager is a good person to work with; she is a consultant with a lot of valuable experience and I’m sure I will learn a lot working with her. I think she underestimated my capabilities, and by the middle of the second week things took a different turn. I talked to her about wanting to really get involved and be given responsibilities and she gave me some smaller things to do, which I did really well and impressed her! Now I’m working with her on a major project that will pilot next month as well as on an e-commerce project and a diversity project. I also volunteered to work with and learn about the organization’s group for women managers.

Now I’m really getting involved, which is great! My calendar is full and I’m very happy to be so busy!