I mistakenly thought that by the grand old age of 22, I’d had enough experience of first days to know exactly what to expect joining the grown-up world working for Lloyd’s.

On your first day of school, you expect to meet your new-best-friend-for-life (on the basis that she has the same Forever Friends pencil sharpener as you). On your first day of Uni you expect to wave goodbye to your parents and embark on 3 years of socialising, playing sport, and having the time of your life (with a few lectures and finals thrown in as an inconvenience along the way).

So a First Day at Lloyds?

The nerves beforehand…the excitement to be wearing a new suit…to be meeting new people… and the delayed tube ride that made me 2 minutes late… so far, not so unexpected.

But going up in the glass lifts, on the outside of the building, to the 11th floor, next to the ‘Gherkin’, to spend our first morning meeting the CEO of Lloyd’s, and several other Very-Important-People including directors and heads of departments…? Already I was beginning to realise that Lloyd’s graduate scheme is pretty unique.

If you have got as far as reading this blog, you have probably already had a glance around the grad website or Lloyds.com and read about how we are Lloyd’s of:

‘Extreme Situations’
‘Zero Gravity’
‘One Giant Leap for Man-Kind’
And
‘Coffee Drinkers’ amongst many, many other things.

I had read through all of this many times in preparation for my first day here at Lloyd’s. In fact one of the main reasons I applied here was the diversity of experiences and opportunities on offer: from the structure of the program link to learning about the ‘Sexy’ Insurance market itself.

But no amount of research could quite prepare me for my first week. After just the first hour here my nerves had relaxed into excitement- everyone was completely welcoming and helpful. The first week saw the 7 grads meeting the big guns, learning the ins-and-outs of Sexy Insurance, and even chopping down trees on a bonding day at a Farm in central London!

I’ve now been here nearly 4 weeks, and yes the hours are 9-5, but so far I’m happy to report that a career at Lloyd’s is ‘not your everyday 9-5’… I’m really looking forward to joining the Claims Team for the next 6 months, and will keep blogging to try and give you some insight into what being a graduate here at Lloyd’s is really like…