I may or may not know what I'm doing.
2022-09-17
Note: Offer, housing, onboarding, communication, block, mentor, salary, work term evaluation, taxes
This is a footnote for the series on the first year experience at the University of Waterloo.
Today’s topic will be on how to do work for an employer.
Congratulations on matching with your co-op job!
The WaterlooWorksn’t work-term support (WTS) co-op advisor is your point of contact on the UW side. Unfortunately, it’s still CECA.
Your employer will send you an offer letter to formalize your employment with the company. This usually happens 1-2 weeks after matching on WaterlooWorksn’t. If it’s been longer, send a polite email asking about paperwork. If there’s no response for another week, you can send another email and/or contact your co-op advisor.
You might be able to negotiate salary before your employer sends a final offer, but if you’ve been matched through WaterlooWorksn’t you have very little leverage. This is why you should ask about salary in your interview or as a follow-up email before rankings. Additionally, a lot of employers refuse to negotiate for a variety of reasons (e.g. the most common is that all co-ops are paid on the same scale). If there is a large discrepancy between the salary in your interview and offer letter, contact your co-op advisor.
In addition to the offer letter, your employer may ask for other paperwork such as work eligibility, TD1 for tax deductions, identification, and banking information for direct deposit.
As usual, you will need to find a place to live and move there. Your employer might be able to provide a stipend to cover these expenses.
Personally, I find “one problem at a time” is a useful reminder.
It’s good practice to compartmentalize your work space and your personal space. This means that all work-related content should stay on work computers, and no personal content should touch work hardware (e.g. no installing IM/Skype/IRC/Discord or posting on Tweetbook on a work laptop). IT knows all. Sometimes it’s unavoidable though, such as Slack being on your phone.
Make sure it is clear where you have to go and when on your first day. You will probably have to complete a bunch of boring HR-mandated training, as well as get access permissions and equipment. The first few weeks will not be that productive as you get familiar with processes and the workspace. Don’t be afraid to ask questions!
If you really want, you can document your onboarding process so that the next co-op has an easier time. It could even be in blog format!
Communication is the most important soft skill to have. You need to be able to express your ideas to others in a coherent manner. When asking a question or giving a comment, make sure to give context so the other person knows what you are trying to convey. Additionally, avoid derailing the topic or going off on a tangent, especially in meetings. Focus on the current topic.
Your mentor should be meeting you at least weekly (more often at the start of your co-op) for any questions or concerns that you have. It could also be a time where you both talk about random non-work topics.
If you feel blocked, do some research, either online or in internal documentation, before bringing your questions and findings to someone else. This shows that you are doing your due diligence to find solutions rather than being handheld through your co-op. If the person that has the knowledge isn’t available, you can switch to a different task or ask for a different one to work on while you’re waiting.
You now have money! Make sure you save your paystubs to verify that you’re being paid the correct amount. If you are being paid less than what’s been signed, contact HR to try to resolve the discrepancy. If you can’t resolve the problem with HR, escalate to your co-op advisor, WUSA legal, and/or the government agency responsible for employment (in Ontario, this is the Ministry of Labour).
About halfway through your co-op, you should ask your mentor and/or manager to do an informal work term evaluation to gauge how you’re doing and whether you’re meeting expectations.
One or two weeks before the end of your co-op, you should meet with your mentor and/or manager to do a formal work term evaluation, which gets completed by them and submitted to CECA through WaterlooWorksn’t. Unfortunately, the ratings suffer from inflation, which means that 95% of co-ops get Very Good or higher. This means that Excellent is the standard. You can show the statistic to your employer if they are giving you a low rating and you think you deserve higher.
If your employer likes you enough, you might be able to get a return offer. This might be good depending on whether the economy is going into another recession. Typically, your employer will want an answer by the start of the next term, which unfortunately means that you can’t use it as a safety net. Personally, I think it’s better to have a variety of experiences, and if I did take a return offer, it would be for doing work that’s much different than my previous co-op (preferably on a different team). I do not recommend returning to the same company more than once (i.e. working at the same company twice is the maximum recommended).
Also remember to return your equipment and don’t forget any personal items.
Your employer will send you a T4 which has the total amount you’ve been paid for the calendar year. You will get a T4 from every different employer that hired you that year (not just co-op).
Taxes are complicated, and your employer will probably deduct more tax than they should which means that you will get a refund from the CRA (unless you’re an “independent contractor” in which case you will owe money). Since we live in the digital age, taxes are pretty much as simple as downloading your favourite tax software (personally I use StudioTax (not sponsored)) and following the directions.
Some important forms are:
I am not a tax expert, please do your taxes correctly.
The important information to take away is to be employed and pay taxes.
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