Since she launched the online retailer Nasty Gal in 2006, Sophia Amoruso has become CEO to the “fastest growing retailer” (according to Inc. Magazine). In her first book, the 30-year-old writes about her journey to become one of today’s most celebrated young entrepreneurs and what it takes to be successful and in charge of your own life. In the excerpt below, she gives millennials a frank dose of advice on expectation versus reality in the real world.
You Are Not a Special Snowflake
“Millennials got so many participation trophies growing up that a recent study showed that 40% believe they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance.”
—Joel Stein in Time magazine
From one speed demon to another, let me be straight with you: Slow your roll. You got a job, that’s great, but you need to get your hands dirty and spend time proving yourself before you ask for a raise or a promotion. Four months are not enough, and neither are eight. At the bare minimum, you need to be in your position for a year before you ask for a raise or title change. Even then, that’s if and only if you’ve been going above and beyond, doing work that’s outside your job description, and generally making yourself completely indispensable to your employer.
A lot of people in my generation don’t seem to get that you have to work your way up. An entry level job is precisely that—entry level—which means that you’re not going to be running the show or getting to work on the most fun and creative projects. I’ve heard so many people in their twenties complain about their jobs because they “have so much more to offer,” but first and foremost, you have to do the job that you’re there to do. I don’t care if filing invoices is beneath you. If you don’t do it, who do you think is going to?
Your boss? Nope. That’s why she hired you.
I know you’ve probably grown up with your parents telling you that you’re special every day for the past twenty years—it’s okay, my parents did too—but you still have to show up and work hard just like everybody else. If you’re a #GIRLBOSS, you should want to work harder than everybody else.
It takes a lot more than just knowing how to put an outfit together to succeed in the fashion industry, so more power to you if this is where you want to be; just don’t expect it to be an extended trip to the mall. And if you’re a cute girl expecting to just get by on her looks, go apply elsewhere. We’ve already got a ton of cute girls working at Nasty Gal, and they’re all busting ass.
The Four Words Thou Shalt Never Mutter
You want to know what four words I probably hate the most? “That’s not my job.” Nasty Gal is not a place where these four words fly. At the end of the day, we’re all here for one reason and one reason only—to make the company succeed—and there will undoubtedly be a day (perhaps every day) when you will have to roll up your sleeves and dive in where you’re needed. When a company is growing quickly, there will be times when there are holes—there is a job that needs to be done, and there is no one there to do it.
A few years back, our warehouse manager gave his two weeks’ notice exactly two weeks before Black Friday. On Thanksgiving night, our creative director, merchandisers, girls from the buying team, me, and whomever else we were able to round up headed down there and shuffled around a dusty warehouse until 4:00 a.m., scanning and reclassifying all of our inventory so we could ensure that the people who shopped with us on one of the most important retail days of the year actually got the clothes that they ordered. At 2:00 a.m., as I was counting and recounting bustiers, I did not give a shit whether people were creative or whether they loved fashion—I was just thankful to have employees who were willing, even enthusiastic, to step up and work hard.
In an ideal world you’d never have to do things that are below your position, but this isn’t an ideal world and it’s never going to be. You have to understand that even a creative job isn’t just about being creative, but about doing the work that needs to get done. The #GIRLBOSS who is willing to do a job that is below her—and above—is the one who stands out. Above, you ask? Yes. Sometimes you’ll find an opportunity to step in when your boss is out, or just swamped, and show your worth. You’re as smart as she is, anyway, so figure it out as you go and make it look like child’s play. It’s that attitude, and behavior, that will get you ahead.
Reprinted from #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso with permission of Portfolio/Putnam, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright (c) Sophia Amoruso, 2014.