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So there’s a natural sense of nervousness and excitement that goes along with the first day, right? First day of school, first day in a new country, first day of work. And that is totally justified.

But, I think that the second day experience is completely overlooked.

See, on the first day, you are prepared for these nerves and you’re trying extra hard to make a good impression. You smile at everyone, your handshakes are on point, your outfit is carefully selected, and you show up at least 30 minutes early.

The second day, on the other hand, you have a little bit of false sense of confidence. You leave the house a little later, your outfit doesn’t look like it was designed on Pinterest, your lunch goes from a homemade salad to a handful of stale pretzels that you *think* you bought at a gas station weeks ago.

See this was me on my first few days at my internship this summer. Day 1, I was nervous, but I was ready. After 30 days at Fort Knox sweating and wielding an M4 in the woods of Kentucky, I was ready for civilization. Any little mistake I made on day 1 could easily be shrugged off by my boss: “It’s the first day, she’s just getting used to things.” I completed the very difficult task of getting an ID and signed some paperwork for the HR division, and it all felt like success.

So day 2, Brenna the overconfident intern struts in, ready to roll. Thirty seconds in, Brenna the overconfident intern gets stopped at the security gate because she can’t dig her ID out of her bag fast enough. She trips on her way out of the supervisor’s office, and she accidentally prints out 2 copies of a 140+ page document instead of just one, killing billions of trees in the process. Placing a case file in the wrong pile isn’t a “first day mistake” anymore, and she can’t remember where she parked her car in the parking garage, on account of sprinting into the office that morning because she was almost late.

Was the story dramatic enough that I needed to refer to myself in 3rd person? Yes, I would say so.

Luckily days 3 and 4, while they weren’t perfect, I pulled my life together a little better. I showed up to work early again, packed a good lunch, and gave myself a mirror pep talk about not tripping over everything all the time. There is definitely something to be said for those first-day-nerves. They keep you in check and give you a cushion from being an idiot all the time. Once you lose them on the second day, you have a tendency to turn into an idiot college student who is playing adult for the day–try everything you can to resist this transition for as long as possible. Pack your healthy salad lunch, keep your ID close to your heart, and for the love of God, check how many copies the printer is set to make.