I was very lucky with my first job in the A/E/C/Environmental arena.
In the late 1970s to early 1980s, I was a word processor at Espey, Huston & Associates, Inc., the preeminent environmental consulting firm in Texas I was working late one evening on a proposal for dredging a coastal Texas port into a deep-water facility. Part of the proposal involved describing the industries that had facilities within the port boundaries.
Someone had turned in a write-up on the aluminum industry because of a processing facility within the port. However, in my last employment before coming to Texas, I had worked on a major aluminum industry project, and was pretty well versed with the industry. I thought that what had been turned in read like something copied from a second- or third-rate encyclopedia that was a few years out of date. So working from my memory of my earlier study, I totally rewrote the section and put it in the proposal.
When I was finished, I printed my work, attached the other person's draft write-up, wrote a note to the proposal manager explaining what I had done and why, and asking him to check both versions of the section very carefully. I apologized in case I had been totally out of line. Then I went home.
The next afternoon, the proposal manager sought me out, told me no apology was necessary, agreed that the other person's work would not have been usable, praised my initiative and my new draft of the section, and spent another half hour with me asking about my work background. At the end of the discussion, he told me that I should ALWAYS take such liberties when I worked on one of his proposals.
Very soon, and totally un-asked for, I started to get similar instructions/permissions from other proposal managers. My responses ranged from pointing out what I thought was inferior writing to total rewrites as I had done with the aluminum industry section, and everything in between. I became the "go to" person for proposal support from that point until I moved to one of the firm's branch offices three years later. This ultimately led me to a marketing career in the A/E/C/Environmental arena.
Ultimately, over my next six years with the firm, during which I moved into a full-time marketing and business development support role, I lucked out with yet another situation. My supervisor now was an artist running a marketing department. I, as her assistant, ran the writing side of things. If I brought her any new idea I could think of that she agreed might be beneficial, I was allowed to try it. If any of those new ideas proved to be both workable and beneficial, it was added to my job description. In this manner, over the three years I worked for her, I was able to grow my position to be the firm's Assistant Director of Public Relations and Marketing Support, charged with providing a range of marketing and business development assistance for multiple offices in multiple states.
And that's what kept me busy, challenged, and happy for the next 30 years!