Maitlynn Mossolle's Portfolio
BENCHMARK 4:
Personal Management
Have a good attendance record at school, work, and/or extracirricular activities
In April of 2013, I got hired at the Brooklyn Country Market as a bagger. I was so excited to have my first job and I am generally a very hard worker so I knew that it would be a good place for me to work. My first few days went great, however, I was not used to working as much as I was especially when I didn’t really know what I was doing so I felt a little overwhelmed. Despite being overwhelmed, I stuck through it and over the summer I worked more and more and absolutely loved it. I met all kinds of new, fun people as coworkers or even the regular shoppers. I will admit that there have been many days where I have thought about calling in sick because I do not want to go in but I end up going in anyways because I do not have it in me to give up like that.
I have now worked there for six months now and I can honestly say that I love it. My boss is great about working with my busy schedule with things such as golf. If we need days off, we have to put it into the request book so that the management knows about it before so that we don’t just call in sick. It really is a great system and I have been really good about requesting my days off in time and making sure I come in when I have to work. From the day I started to now, I have not called in sick once. I will say that there have been times when I did not request my days off in time and end up getting scheduled to work and, being a responsible and respectable employee, will go in because I cannot let me coworkers and boss down.
In a professional sense, in Journalism it is absolutely important that you have good attendance. With such tight deadlines and assignments that can come in the blink of an eye it is important that you are there and ready to work. Some publications base your income off of the stories you do and if you are not in attendance to write those stories, you are not only holding back the paper, but you are also not making your money. If there ever were a breaking news story and everyone else was working and there was nobody else there to cover it, it would essentially be your fault for not being there. Poor attendance is really a problem in some businesses because not only does it look unprofessional but also, things do not get done in time.
In my personal life having a good attendance is really important to me. I am always worried about offending someone if I do not come to something they have invited me to. If you do not ever show up to things that your friends or family invite you to then they will no longer invite you to things and you will then be left out. That’s one thing I do not like to be, is being left out. Sometimes it can be really hard to juggle work, school, sports, clubs, and personal relationships with people but that is how I have really weeded out the people in your life who are willing to stay and understand and I have learned a lot about prioritizing.
Meet School and/or Work deadlines
In theatre class, memorizing lines for the play is absolutely crucial otherwise the play is a train wreck. Of course, there are prompters backstage; however, they cannot give you every single line you have. That is why we are given a deadline to memorize our lines. If not, some people would not have them remembered by the time of the actual production. Memorizing my lines is one of the things that is actually really important to me, if I didn’t have them memorized by the deadline, not only would I panic about not having them done, but I would be so disappointed in myself because I know I can do better than that. The feeling of being able to act without using a script is honestly one of the most successful feelings. I memorized my lines by the due date of November 8th, continued on without my script, and received a one-hundred percent for my overall line memorization grade.
In Journalism, it’s all about the deadlines. If you do not meet the deadlines, you are completely out of the job. Things go to print on specific days and if your article or story is not in by that deadline, it cannot go to print. This really poses a problem for the publication, especially if your story was one of the biggest “scoops” of that time. Missing out on deadlines, just like in school, says a lot about your performance and work ethic, if an employer notices you are missing deadlines left and right then they will replace you with someone who is better.
In my personal life, there are things that need to be done by or at specific times. There are things such as college applications, wedding plans, or even baby plans where if you are not on track and on time with things, it will be messed up and won’t happen. Being a person who is on time with things is absolutely important. If I were to always be late or never get things done, then people would never want to have relations with me as they would know I would not be showing up until later. Being on time and meeting school and work deadlines can only ultimately benefit me professionally and personally.
