Carly Rogers: Finding Workplace Confidence - Scorned by Strangers and Tested by Technology

The phrase “get out of your comfort zone” has always bothered me for two reasons: One, because I quite like staying in my comfort zone; and two, because it is a highly subjective phrase. Some people may think of getting out of their comfort zone by bungee jumping off of a bridge, but when I compare myself to people like that, I realize my comfort zone is much more confined.

When I first read that the honors college encouraged its members to pursue an internship, I knew that my comfort zone would be challenged. I dreaded the day that eventually did come: I had the perfect summer schedule to fit in an internship, and after days of scrolling through LinkedIn and applying to several places, I was accepted into an internship program with TurnUp Activism. Admittedly, it was the perfect fit for my skillset. I am an English major who had to research and write about various ethical issues, which was also topical for my Philosophy minor. However, I was still apprehensive.

On the one hand, I was nervous about working in general. My first job was as a back-of-house dishwasher for a local pizza place, and some medical issues of mine (which, at the time, I did not realize I had) had gotten in the way of working. While it was easy, it was labor intensive. Perhaps it was just my teenage naiveté, but I was also overwhelmed by being at the bottom of this hierarchy that matters at almost every restaurant. While I made some decent money and learned some good tips for dishwashing more efficiently, the overall negative experience made me feel like I was completely unprepared for the workforce. On the other hand, this new internship, while it ended up exposing me to so many kinds of people, was remote, and I couldn’t help but compare it to the incredible experiences of my peers who were living across the ocean or interning in another state.

Looking back on it now, the position’s remoteness allowed me to stay close to family and doctors on the heels of having another bout of medical issues, and it most certainly still challenged me in ways that allowed me to grow and restore my workplace confidence.

The first challenge came within just the first week of my internship: I had completed the onboarding meeting, in which they told me I would receive an email later that day that invited me to the company’s Slack channel; only, I didn’t get the email until three days after I should have. I received the email at around 5 pm the day before my official start date and set up my profile immediately. I panicked when I read a message from the director that those who did not set up a profile by 11 am that morning were not added to a team and would have to wait until the next month to start (because new recruits are only allowed to start on the first Monday of every month). My workplace confidence was tested before I had my first assignment, but I took the chance to produce an eloquent and sophisticated message, and I searched through Slack to find the names of every superior that was mentioned in the onboarding meeting. I had explained that I understood if they were not adding people to teams because of user error, but my situation was due to what I presume was a technological glitch or delay. To show that I had read the instructions, I mentioned that I would miss out on the opportunity to participate in the internship at the recommended length—at least three months—if I had to start late. Thankfully, I received a response from the executive director later that evening that he made an exception, and that he added me to a team, and I could start the next day. Four or five years prior, I would not have elected to stand up for myself, and I was glad to learn that I was working with a company that allowed me to self-advocate.

Before discussing my second challenge, I should mention that my contracted hours were divided in half between research and project-oriented tasks and grassroots activities. Most of the grassroots I did was phone banking. Which, for those who don’t know, is where a group of people connect to a dialer which allows them to call people and persuade them to research, donate, or vote. In my case, my usual task was to call people in various swing states and ask them to register to vote in the upcoming election. When the sessions were hosted by my parent company, it was non-partisan. One of these non-partisan calls certainly tested my patience:

When the line indicated that someone answered, I gave my “you should register to vote!” spiel to a man who immediately lost his patience with me. Then came an onslaught of expletives and insults and different ways to say he’d never vote for a left-leaning party. I had to calmly explain to him that the organization I was working for was non-partisan, and that our job was to ask people if they were registered and help them if they were not and needed our help. He, suddenly shy, replied, “oh,” and told me that yes, he already was registered.

I was proud of myself at that moment, one, for sticking with the script and not revealing that we very clearly had different political views, and two, for not letting his words mean much to me. At the end of the day, he was a stranger in Arizona, and his insults rolled off of me. I had many more calls like this, one where someone threatened to call the police on me, but I found myself unfazed by it all, and I was easily able to go about the rest of my day when I was done with my work. Some of my peers on my team admitted that they let the words get to them, and I shared my logic that they were probably never going to meet those people or hear from them again. I had realized that I once would have let their words bother me, too, which made me recognize my own growth.

Had I not stood up for myself in the very beginning, I would not have had so many learning opportunities from my research and guest speakers, nor would I have spoken to as many kinds of people from all over the United States. My internship was nothing like jumping off a bridge with a rope tied to my waist, but it made me realize that there are workplace environments that can accommodate my personal and medical needs. It was the experience I needed to prove to myself that not every job would be like my first one. Ultimately, I think that we should revise the “get out of your comfort zone” cliché to something more optimistic, albeit long and wordy: “Step out of your comfort zone, and if one direction doesn’t work, try another direction.”

Carly Rogers is an English, Professional Writing major from Simpsonville, South Carolina. In Summer 2024, she interned with TurnUp Activism, an organization committed to engaging the youth in voter registration and politics. She graduates May 2025, and plans to work her way into graduate school for an MFA in Writing.