Early Life Experience Essay

Question 1: Which people and experiences in your early life had the greatest impact on you?

When looking at my earliest experiences in life that had an initial impact on me they’re all related to my parents, so I would have to say the people with the earliest impact were my mother and father. I believe a lot of your values come from the way you were raised and your environment that you grew up in. We didn’t grow up poor by any means but at the same time I knew my parents initially struggled with finances as many young adults with children do. When I was born my mother stopped working and became a full time stay at home mom, my father hadn’t completed college and was working for General Electric as a service technician. I remember as a child

As I shared with the class my job is still in a very old school working environment and my initial working behavior clashed with a lot of these old school values. Many of normal behaviors that I see as not being as big deal (not wearing socks, using headphones, and working 8 hours than going to gym) were actually seen as unprofessional and had a negative perception for many of higher up co-workers. I have found that this has led to conflict with me trying to be myself but also trying to fit in at work in the best manner possible. This has been the ultimate test of my self-awareness pushing me to be my authentic self while still being active in recognizing behavior that isn’t going to fly. But with that being said I have seen that being my authentic self has changed the work environment slowly but surely more people are starting to use headphones at work and also dressing more casually then when I first started almost 2 years ago. With this also comes compromise though so now not that its more acceptable to use headphones, how about we don’t walk around the office with them in while our CEO is in town, same with the sock issue. It’s been interesting to see how the work environment/culture has been slowly shifting to attract and retain a younger work