Your employer is paying you for the value you contribute to the company. As a result, your superior has a responsibility to make sure you are doing your part to help the company remain (or become and then remain) profitable. As part of the deal, it's understood that the company will influence you to be the best possible employee you're capable of being. Ideally, it will want you to work within the company's established way of doing business, while at the same time encouraging you to be an independent and free-thinking person bringing new ideas to the job.

As a result, your superiors have to be commanding, yet at the same time nurturing. The best bosses accomplish this balance with ease, and they're a pleasure to work for. Unfortunately, you're not allowed the luxury of picking and choosing bosses. Part of being a responsible and mature employee is learning to make certain sacrifices, and this includes dealing with a superior's shortcomings.

You may find yourself having to answer to two superiors who have differing views on how work should be done. This can be an awkward situation, but it can sometimes work as an advantage too. As long as their different methods don't completely work against one another, the variety can be refreshing for you.

An advantage a worker/superior relationship has over a student/professor one is that you're often afforded a greater chance to "bond" with your boss; you're with this person for considerably more time than you're with any single professor as a student. This allows both of you to learn a lot about one another, and this familiarity can be a great help in the job you perform daily and, on the longer term, in your career.

It's practically guaranteed that you'll learn an awful lot from your first boss. When the going gets tough, and all the training becomes stressful for you, I'd like to suggest that you remember this: one of the most important things a boss teaches you is how to be a boss yourself when your time comes. So be a responsible and attentive student, and learn all you can from this highly influential new person in your life.