Introducing new people to old things

Posted by Colin
October 3, 2008

When new people join an organization, company, or group of people, it is the job of the existing folks to bring that new person up-to-speed. During this process, the old-timer has a choice to make regarding their attitude in this indoctrination:

When I’m the old-timer in a scenario like this, I tend to always fall into the second group of people. Why!?

It doesn’t seem to even matter how I actually feel. If I’m more honestly in the first or third category, I still pull myself into this category that has mastered the soft touch. I don’t know if this is because I’m putting myself in the new person’s shoes, because I’m reevaluating my own personal thinking, or something else.

In a job interview, if someone asks a question such as “what is the typical project life-cycle like around here?” — a very excellent question for an interviewing developer — I tend to answer at length rather than quickly. “Typically, the turnover is pretty quick. But some projects can run long because of client delays. It’s like this one project I’m on…. or this other one I’m working through…. or this one we had a couple months back…. yadda yadda….” At a time when I should be upselling and singing the praises of our lifecycle I tend to fall back into this reality-stricken middleground.

This is even true of when I’m the new guy, too. I always straddle this in-between spot of not getting my expectations up or holding back in my degree of excitement. This has been very noticeable in the past few months as I’ve met new people and explore new things in San Francisco.

I want to be cordial and friendly and interested, and I temper my highs and lows in order to do this. Maybe this makes me more accurate on the overall. Or maybe this just makes me boring.

Rants, Work

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

(required)

(required)