Receiving your first promotion is an amazing feeling, almost better than feeling boobs for the first time. It’s not quite as easy as Peter Gibbons made it look, but it’s still pretty damn easy if you’re willing to put in the effort.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “Whatever. I know everyone thinks our generation is a bunch of entitled, lazy, silver spoon-fed yuppies, but I’m different. I’m sure management has already noticed that I’m special and has obviously placed me on the fast track to real authority and responsibility.” If this is you, please stop reading, get up from your desk, go outside and throw yourself into oncoming traffic.

As much as we all love burning up our work weeks eating up all the A-List shit that PGP has to offer (does anyone notice that this site is a ghost town on weekends?), someday we might actually like to be the boss, and get paid like one. The only platform from which I may speak is my own experience, but I got my first promotion 13 months after starting at my job, and I’m still 23. I have two shifts of 20 hard working Cajun men reporting directly to me as an Engineering Project Director. Now that I marginally have your attention, be quiet and read.

1. Walk into your boss’ office unannounced and politely ask for ten minutes of his/her time to “talk about the future.” Bosses love that. Break the ice with one of their favorite topics (if you don’t know what your boss likes/dislikes by now, you will never be promoted), and steer the conversation into this phrase: “Remember back when you interviewed me and asked where I saw myself in five to ten years? Well, I still want to [insert standard interview response here], but I really wanted to talk to you about where you see me in the next three to six months. I feel that I’ve really learned a lot over the past year, and I think I’m ready for some more responsibility.” All you are doing is respectfully and confidently expressing your own opinion. You haven’t asked for anything. Have this conversation with your boss as soon as possible. Management likes to see drive, gumption, and a willingness to learn out of new graduates. Check your ambition at the door. Whether they like it or not, you’re the future of the company. They can either promote you or hire somebody better. Promoting you is less work for them. People don’t like having more work to do.

2. Start beating your boss into work. I know it sucks, but how bad do you want a promotion? If your boss is an inhuman machine who arrives to work around the same time that most strippers are finishing up their shifts, that’s okay. You need to be at your desk between 7 and 7:15, bottom line. You can still accomplish this (factoring in a 30-minute commute) with a 6am wake up time. Send a couple emails right when you get to your desk, and make sure your boss is copied on one of them. As the rest of your coworkers meanders into the office around 8, they’ll begin to see your car parked right in front, day after day and assume you’re killing it. The sleeping habits of the rich and successful are well documented. They all go to bed early and are out of the door with breakfast in their belly before you’ve hit the snooze button.

3. Lose weight if you need to. The sad truth is that overweight professionals are less likely to be promoted than their attractive, in shape colleagues. Life isn’t fair, so the best way you can tip the scales in your favor is to be the best looking person you can be. Don’t sacrifice your personal happiness for a diet; just do the little things like fruit instead of french fries or scotch on the rocks instead of rum and coke. If you stop drinking soda and eating fried food for a month, changing nothing else, I promise you’ll lose at least 10 pounds. Let your last waning drops of youthful metabolism go to work for you before it’s too late. If you’re already in top shape, then disregard this.

4. It is better to be liked than to be competent. Work hard at earning your colleague’s respect and admiration. Laugh at their jokes. Listen to stories about their kids. Make them feel heard and valued, and end every interaction with either a smile on their face or a pleasant thought in their mind. Stick to business and common interests with your boss and the higher ups, but make sure that everyone else in the building likes you and is rooting for you. Send out the good vibes and become a people magnet.

5. Be competent and responsible, or at least appear to be. This is accomplished by hiding your Friday hangovers. Nobody (including you in 25 years) likes to go back and forth from work every day to their boring house and boring kids and be reminded of all the good times we have that married people are no longer allowed to. You being a recent postgrad, hungover as fuck from your awesome Thursday night will result in you not being taken seriously, and could even lead to resentment amongst your pettier coworkers. Other than that, show up to meetings five minutes early, always walk with purpose to and from your desk, look people in the eye when they are talking to you, and proofread your emails before you send them. Nothing will turn your boss off quicker than a rogue typo.

6. Come up with a really good thinking face. I’ll explain. Depending on the legitimacy of your degree and university (no judgment, I hated engineering and am selling my soul like a cheap whore right now), your company will probably think you’re at least kind of smart. What they don’t know is that as postgrads, we’re completely lost mentally around 75 percent of the time. When someone is explaining something to you and you have no idea what they are talking about, execute this maneuver: take the nail of your index finger and place it in the notch between your two front top teeth and your two front bottom teeth, right in the middle. Try it now. Push your thumb against your jaw and the back of your middle finger into your chin. Turn your head and stare at the nearest bottom corner of the room while holding a squint stare like the sun is in your eyes. Congratulations! You now look like you are deep in thought and your brain is revving at 100 miles per hour. Don’t get lost in your own brilliance though. Latch on to at least one key phrase in the conversation that you can parrot back to someone what you just heard, conveying your understanding. Example: “So if I understand you correctly, the TPS reports go out now using the new cover sheets?” That’s what management likes to see: you’re teachable and smart as a whip, who is learning the ins and outs of your company.

7. Be willing to relocate. Chances are, you are not married and have no kids. That gives you a major advantage over almost all of your coworkers. I’m pretty convinced the only reason I was offered this promotion was because not one of the engineers in our Houston office wanted to move their kids to rural Louisiana (I’m really not joking about the alligators outnumbering the people three to one; they’re basically pests out here). Being geographically flexible shows maturity and ambition at a young age, and that’s exactly what management wants to hear. Do you seriously think I like living where Swamp People is filmed right now? No, but I’m being compensated fairly for living here and I’m getting awesome supervisor experience at a very young age, which will set me up even better for my next promotion, which you bet your ass is coming if I keep rereading this article over and over again to keep myself pumped up.

Suck it up, pay your dues for a year or so, and then go after the job you really want.