What were the best things you learned in your first job?

As an Engineer :

Most important thing I learned from my first job is :

The university did not teach me everything , I have to be a student again .

 Also the system is the only way to success , even if you worked at a company without clear system Try to create your own system  .

Thanks for invitation

I learned that hard work pays. Passion are always your best asset. Push yourself to the limits and don't put the financial goals as your guide.

1. Early on, attitude matters as much or more than actual output.No one likes working with an a**hole, even if they are good. Sure if you are extraordinary you can get away with it, but most of us aren't THAT good at any one thing. (say like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Alex Rodriguez)
2. Until you are the CEO, regardless of your job title or job description, your actual job is to make your boss/supervisor's life easier. The sooner you realize it's about them, and not you, the smoother things will be
3. Take performance reviews with a grain of salt, they will never be perfectly accurate - as with all things, there is human bias and irrationality built into the system. You are not as good or as bad as whatever your review explicitly says. Use whatever you get as feedback, that you can process and choose whether or not you want to make those changes.
4. Attention to detail matters a lot, so learn to be detail oriented, even if that's not your normal mode of operation. Because in groups of humans, it's all about building trust. Having checked everything twice, and being really on top of your game is the easiest way to built that trust over time with people you don't know that well.
5. Be a net adder of energy to a room, not a net removed of energy. It almost always pays to be positive, even when disagreeing.
6. No amount of money is worth being bored. If you aren't engaged with what you do, switch it up unless you have some family obligations you can't get out of.
7. When you start off your work will mostly consist of100% stuff you don't necessarily want to do. As you get more senior and earn more trust, you earn the right to take on work/jobs that have a higher % stuff you like doing/enjoy and a lower % stuff you don't like doing but have to do
8. Culture fit/match is a big deal, you can be a total stud in one setting and a total dud in another, even while acting exactly the same. Be honest to yourself in looking for a culture in which you would enjoy working - For those of you that are very anti doing thing's anyone else's way, start something yourself!
9. If you don't tell your coworkers or boss what you want, they have no way of knowing. By just accepting all status quo, you are implicitly saying you are ok with the way things are. But be respectful and thoughtful when you do it, not entitled or greedy.
10. You won't figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life from your first job. (some people do, but it's rare). Instead focus on A/B testing in your own life - try to absorb all the things you experience and figure out what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy, what type of people you like working with, etc. Use the first job to get exposed to as many variations as possible, so you can make better choices going forward.

Within my first job which started on Aug.2001 and lasts on Sept.2008, I have learned a lot of skills, such as; a lot of IT and InfoSec skills, Project and Program management skills. These skills have been translated into a meaningful credentials, such as; PMP, CISSP, CISA, CAP, CSSLP, CCNA, and others. In general, I am proud for having this kind of experience in my first job because it make me more professional person in the field of InfoSec and Project/Program management, and it has been landed me into my current career.

One thing I would like to add here . First Challenge at any job is to create ACCPETANCE for your self and develop good relationship with all people.

This was my learning at my1st Job.

1. Industry is not an institute of learning. Its a place of implementation and utilization of your skills.

2. Specialization is the main tool to survive.

3. There should be Continuous progress and development of your mind and personality.

4. Patience, kill ego and move with the company.

5. Make a good team instead to work alone. 

1. more patient

2.more attention

3.open for learning

4.skills

with an apprenticeship in Germany you learn everything about the company, you work in all departments therefore meet the coworkers and workers on the floor .. you respect what the do and therefore you try to make their lives easier... team work ... how to manufacture parts to make the product and make the end product you sell .... you make sure everything is to ISO standards and a good quality product.... knowing what you need to do and what others do ... how to help them to make their jobs easier .... and get information from them which is vital to make a good product

Unless you are staggeringly lucky, your first job is probably not going to be your dream job. Just because you don't make six figures flipping burgers doesn't mean that job isn't important, though. No matter how crappy your first job is, it can teach you plenty of lessons that will help you build a career worth having.

We live in a time of chronic dissatisfaction in the workplace. Gallup's2013 State of the…Read more

You Are Expendable

Getting a degree, working your way up in a company, and getting a nice position that's difficult to attain can make you forget one very important lesson: you can be replaced. In fact, nearly every skill you'll ever learn for your job is part of a continuing effort to make it more difficult to be replaced. With very few exceptions (and in all likelihood, you are not one of them), if you lose your job, someone will come along to do the work you left. They may even do it better than you. As reader Chris Murray explains, you don't just need to be a good worker. You need tostrive to be the most valuable:

Be nice to your co-workers and help them when you can. Try to like and get along with them. But,…Read more

Do whatever it takes to be the most valuable employee, even if that means working the occasional double or cleaning the toilets, etc. (But also, realize what your time, physical and mental health are worth to you.)

I like my coworkers, but not enough to yield my hours to them, so I need to be more valuable than they are. On a good week, I'll get40+ hours, but when we are slow, I'm not the first person they send home.

Reader Black Attack further explains the sink-or-swim mentality. In short, your company isn't there to keep you entertained. It's there to do business:

Coming into work prepared to be busy from the second you hit the time clock. Companies are always…Read more

Coming into work prepared to be busy from the second you hit the time clock. Companies are always in motion, with or without you so you have to be ready to grind from the time your foot hits the door.

Your first job makes it very easy to learn this lesson. Retail, food service, and many entry level jobs tend to have a higher turnover rate than most. Most of us will have seen a coworker leave in the first year or two of our first job. However, it's much more rare for any of us to see a single employee leave only to watch the company collapse.

People Skills Are Just As Important as Hard Work

There was a period in my life where I genuinely believed that hard work was all that mattered in a job. To a certain extent, that was true. Many bosses will stay happy so long as you can get work done and do it well. However, that only really sustains your current job. If you want to move forward, make connections, or get a better position, people are the way to get there. As reader palehorsevictoria explains, this doesn't just get you in good with your boss, it helps work get done more effectively:

Good customer service and good manners go a really long way. I can tell someone that their account…Read more

Good customer service and good manners go a really long way. I can tell someone that their account is incredibly past due and try to get some amount of payment, but whether I get yelled at and hung up on or actually get some money depends on whether I continue to treat them like a human being.

Since then I have always tried to mind my manners. I ask people how they're doing, request information nicely and thank them for everything, and my team usually reports delivers status and meets deadlines on time.

The benefits don't end there. Our own Andy Orin shares how being put in an inherently social situation opened him up to building social skills in both his personal and aquatic life:

I worked at a college bookstore, primarily helping people find their books (they'd give me…Read more

I worked at a college bookstore, primarily helping people find their books (they'd give me their class schedule, clueless as to what they need, and I'd figure it out). It was fine. I also hated it. But as a pretty shy teenager it was very good to throw myself into the fire and be forced to talk with a bunch of humans. It wasn't a profound lesson, but I'm sure it refined my ability to have casual, friendly conversations with strangers outside of an IRC chatroom. Before that I also did volunteer work at an aquarium, which taught me to have a good rapport with fish.

No matter what job you have, the people are going to be what matters. They'll give you recommendations, they'll decide who gets a promotion, and they have the ability to make your experience as great or as awful as possible. As AudibleNod says, they're not just coworkers,they're humans:

Unless you literally work by yourself and for yourself, you're part of a team. Each team…Read more

Unless you literally work by yourself and for yourself, you're part of a team. Each team member is a person, just like you. You don't have to be friends, chums, buds or pals with these people. But, you do have to work with them. Treat them as professionals (even if they aren't) and give them the dignity and respect you yourself demand.

Company Culture is a Huge Factor in Determining Your Happiness

"Nobody likes their boss." At some point or another, you're probably going to hear this and, to a certain extent, it's good advice. You may get lucky enough to like your boss, but you probably won't. That's okay, though! You don't have to like your boss. You should, however, try to find a company culture you mesh well with. This is a difficult yet doable process. As reader jomarchsays, finding an environment you can get along in is sometimes more important than the work you do:

A job is more than just a place you go and a thing you do for8+ hours a day—you also have to deal…Read more

Workplace atmosphere and management make all the difference in the world.

I worked a tough on the body, on your feet all day, sweaty, lots of dirty cleanup job at a casual sandwich chain and I worked a quiet, pleasant smelling job at a lotion chain where we wore niceish professional clothes.

The former job was significantly more pleasant and fun than the other because we were a cohesive supportive team and the way managers handled scheduling and encouragement/critique was so much better.

So I guess what I learned was that who you work with and how things are run is probably at least or almost as important as what you're doing.

Your first job is a great chance to learn what type of culture you get along with. It's a small sample, to be sure, but how do you work best? Do you like to bounce ideas off other people? Do you work better alone? Would you prefer a linear hierarchy that you can move up, or do you want the flexibility to move from project to project? Are ties a deal breaker or must-have? Personally, I thought I'd hate the idea of working a job where I had to wear a tie every day. When I finally did, I loved it (the tie, that is, not the job). The point is, you don't know what kind of culture you're going to fit in with until you start interacting with your coworkers. The crappy job you get right out of high school is an excellent, low-risk opportunity to figure out what that culture is.

Jobs That Aren't in Your Field Can Still Help Your Career

Most of us have certain jobs that we'd like to have more than others. The essence of pursuing a career is working towards those jobs, but the ones you have in between are crucial to getting you there. Sometimes that involves taking an internship that can teach you some necessary skills, but it can just as likely mean giving up the office job to tend bars if that gives you the flexibility you need. For example, reader Apocalypse531 found a way to get paid the same, but incur less stress:

Well I have a couple pieces of advice. First, is to learn that a job is a means to an end. If you…Read more

First, is to learn that a job is a means to an end. If you aren't out of school or on your career path, you need to pay bills and have some extra cash and thats about it, then don't treat it like this sacred thing. My first job was an office job where I drove30 miles to get there, wore a suit, and bought lunch every day. Eventually it dawned on me that tending bar, or waiting tables paid the same without the hassle when you took everything into consideration.

Sometimes what you need most from a job is to learn skills related to your field. Other times, you simply need a paycheck so you can pursue your interests outside of work. It's usually hard to figure out just what you need from a job until you actually start working, but once you do, identifying what you need from that job will go a long way towards telling you what to do next. Which leads to perhaps the most important lesson of all...

Know When It's Time to Quit

Most first jobs have defining characteristics like being crappy or for minimal pay. But even if you luck into a great first job, it still shares one trait with everyone else: it (almost certainly) won't be your last. At some point you're going to make the decision that it's time to leave. Maybe it's because you're unhappy, maybe it's because you want more money, or maybe it's just time for a change. Whatever your reason, you need to know how (and more importantly, why) to leave a job. As reader marenum says, you can learn more from leaving than staying:

Whether you're moving on to a greater opportunity or leaving because you're totally fed…Read more

I learned a lot more from leaving my first crappy job, than I did while I was actually there. It got to a point where I couldn't stand my evil boss, sterile environment, and uninspired work. So I left. I found an internship at a much cooler company within a few months, and even though it was unpaid, it made me so much happier.

Knowing when to quit your job is a difficult process on its own, and while you can keep an eye out for warning signs, quitting a job later in life can be riskier simply because you have more on the line. This makes it all the more important to learn from your first quitting experience. What did you feel better about after leaving? What did you miss? Do you regret leaving the company? How you answer these questions can help you figure out the right way to quit a job. When you get older and you have bills to pay, it'll get easier to think that quitting is always wrong. How you reacted to quitting your first job can tell you if it really is, or if you're just afraid to lose a paycheck.

......................Enthusiasm for work