What happens when you realize the reality of your first 9 to 5 falls short of your expectations?
This was the predicament I found myself in after six months of tweaking my resume and rewriting cover letters post-grad. I spent the greater part of undergrad working a part-time sales position, and after three years of working nights and weekends, the allure of a 9 to 5 held a high esteem in my head. Isn't this what being an adult was all about?
I'd gotten the degree and now the job, but months into the new role, the happiness hadn't clicked. I started to question my decisions. What do you do when you get what you asked for and it's not enough?
I knew I had two choices. I could either complain or dedicate that same energy to finding the silver lining. I went with option two and found ways to make the not-so-perfect job feel worth it. Here's what I did:
Find Passion Outside the Office
A common issue with entry-level jobs is feeling like the work doesn't align with your passions. Millenials are commonly termed the entitled generation and that's not completely false. When you spend four years working towards a degree, then enter a role that doesn't use the skills you cultivated, feeling underwhelmed is warranted. It's important to find ways to continue to harvest these skills. Use your free time after work to volunteer somewhere that needs your skills. You don't have to limit working in your passion to your day job.
Network, Network, Network
While a 5 to 9 is just as important as your 9 to 5, it's wise to take the time to get to know the people on your team. The work you're doing now many not seem like much but you can find an entirely new career path from a single conversation. Take a minute to learn the different roles your team members have and ask about everyone's professional background. Networking plays a big role when looking to get a foot in the door but it doesn't stop there. Keep that elevator pitch ready even while you're well into a role.
Seek More Responsibility
By getting to know your team, you start to narrow down what your next step should be. I took the time during my performance review to make it known that I could handle more work than what I was assigned. Word this carefully. You don't want to whine or sound like you're sitting at work twiddling your thumbs for hours. I expressed interest in a project a manager-level colleague was working on and asked to sit in on meetings to learn more. My boss loved my enthusiasm and gave me the green light. Use this time in your entry-level role to gain insight into as much of the business as possible.
Age Is Not A Limit
Being the youngest woman in an office can get annoying. You've become the dedicated tech problem solver and might have been called "sweetie" once or twice. There's nothing wrong with being young. I've learned not to take the exclamations at my age personally. You have the opportunity to be a sponge and absorb as much as you can. With that, you also have the freedom to leap in any direction you desire. Youth comes with ample opportunity and freedom, embrace it. If the only cost is being told you won't get the joke because it's "before your time," you're not doing too bad.
Your first job may not be everything you wished and that's okay. You have a chance to connect with professionals in your field during the work day and the freedom to explore other passions after 5 pm. Dedicate your energy to learning as much as you can and find more positive ways to spend your 9 to 5.
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak