Today, after six days of preparing, I did a mock business review presentation in front of my team over video conference. My company takes onboarding very seriously, and they want to make sure that everyone is set up for success properly before delving into their actual jobs. This is my seventh week on the job, and I haven’t done any “real” work yet. But given that this presentation is basically a test to see what I know and how I present and speak in front of customers, it was a little nerve-racking for me. I’m usually not that nervous when it comes to having small group conversations with customers and informal chats since I was so used to it at my last job; presenting internally to your team who you know is full of smart (and very opinionated) people tends to seem more scary because you know they will call you out on something if you get it wrong.

I think overall, it went as well as it could have gone. My peers have been very supportive of me, and it’s a comforting feeling that I definitely don’t take for granted. I’m also in an environment now that is conducive to constructive feedback, so however harsh it may be, at least there’s actually a true feedback loop now that we need to acknowledge rather than my last situation, where only the positive (and fake) feedback was given and taken. It’s not great to tell someone they did a great job when in fact, they did a really crappy job.