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I've never had an old colleague contact me. Is that a thing? Forgive me, but I'm not even sure what I should be asking these people... "Why haven't you contact

I've never had an old colleague contact me. Is that a thing? Forgive me, but I'm not even sure what I should be asking these people... "Why haven't you contacted me" sounds too abrasive...

stocknoob 6y ago
Maybe 10% of my coworkers transitioned from work acquaintance ("Hi Jim") into good work acquaintance ("hey man, grab lunch?") into friend ("hey man, want to grab dinner/beers later?") into good friend ("hey man, want to go on an out-of-country trip?"). If nobody is making the jump into good work acquaintance, where you enjoy hanging out casually without needing an explicit work reason, something is amiss. I don't try to form connections, it just happens similar to how you make friends in class. Work is class. If nobody talks to you after the project is over something isn't right. You can't ask people who aren't close directly why they aren't close, but maybe family members / non-work friends. "Is there something about me that makes it difficult to make connections?" It's quite hard to get explicit feedback on this type of thing.
- throwaway_gerts 6y ago
  > You can't ask people who aren't close directly why they aren't close, but maybe family members / non-work friends. Yes! I've done exactly this, and the result is always the same: They can't believe that I'm having problems in this area. "I can't understand how ANYONE could dislike you!" is what my dad said. Fuck... now this is making me sad.
  - stocknoob 6y ago
    Ah, don't get sad -- you seem aware enough to recognize the problem. Just a few thoughts: * These connections are easier when you're in your 20s, single, have time to kill. The company culture may encourage/discourage this too. * If you're a developer, you may be among a less-extroverted cohort, and have to make efforts to reach out vs. being reached-out-to. * These are the hard-to-teach-explicitly items, but is every interaction with coworkers purely about the project? Hobbies, shared interests, movies they've seen, games they play, trips they've done/are going to do, etc.? With a (non-work) shared interest it's hard not to have casual conversations that build a work repoire over time. * There are intangible social signals about willingness to connect (person is overly polite/formal/rigid, facial expressions/body language, warmth of tone and language, etc.). Basically when you sit down next to someone on an airplane, you can tell if they want to chat without having to ask them. Being actively disliked is rarely the issue. You don't dislike the cashier at the grocery store, but the relationship is purely transactional, we can be friendly but let's just get this over with. For some reason, your coworkers may see things this way.
cornel_io 6y ago
Yes, that's a thing if you have good relationships with coworkers who have hiring power in later jobs. Since I switched to being a founder I've firmly disabused most previous coworkers of the notion that I'd ever come to work with them, but I used to regularly hear from them, and now I routinely reach out to the people that I liked working with. If you're not experiencing this, you really can't ask anyone else anything, but you can ask yourself what's wrong. It might just be that you haven't made friends with people who have hiring influence; that said, most people can at least refer folks. More likely is that you aren't getting personally close enough with people at work, so they are not thinking of you. Spend more time interacting on a human level with non-engineers, who are way more often to be influential re: hiring at future jobs. It's also possible that you're not considered a solid worker, or you don't get along with people, but in my experience that's a lot less common than merely not making friends with people who are likely to have jobs to offer in the future. Learning to find and befriet those people is a key career skill.
fma 6y ago
Original commenter here. People don't reach out to me. I reach out to people. I make sure I keep the relationship open. People are way too busy with their lives to maintain connections. Imagine how happy you would be if someone you used to work with reached out to see how you're doing. I'd be very happy. That's why I try to do it...because I know on the other end my former colleague would be happy. I work at a huge company and have been on many teams and projects. Every few days, weeks - I'd ping people just to see what's up and strike a conversation. I don't do it annoyingly...there's a fine balance. You also need to be able to tell who is social and who is not. If you can read that someone has a social personality I'll talk to them more, be friend them...talk to things besides work. There are those who only like to talk about work, and that's fine. Then we just talk about work. I go out of my way to help them out with any problems at work or outside of work. For example someone is a first time home buyer...so I gave advice (I've bought 2 homes in my young career). Another, a manager...his son is in med school, I gave advice (my roommates in grad school were in med school). Another had problems with implementing PGP...so I stayed late one night to help her out.

I've never had an old colleague contact me. Is that a thing? Forgive me, but I'm not even sure what I should be asking these people... "Why haven't you contacted me" sounds too abrasive...

stocknoob 6y ago

Maybe 10% of my coworkers transitioned from work acquaintance ("Hi Jim") into good work acquaintance ("hey man, grab lunch?") into friend ("hey man, want to grab dinner/beers later?") into good friend ("hey man, want to go on an out-of-country trip?"). If nobody is making the jump into good work acquaintance, where you enjoy hanging out casually without needing an explicit work reason, something is amiss. I don't try to form connections, it just happens similar to how you make friends in class. Work is class. If nobody talks to you after the project is over something isn't right. You can't ask people who aren't close directly why they aren't close, but maybe family members / non-work friends. "Is there something about me that makes it difficult to make connections?" It's quite hard to get explicit feedback on this type of thing.

throwaway_gerts 6y ago
> You can't ask people who aren't close directly why they aren't close, but maybe family members / non-work friends. Yes! I've done exactly this, and the result is always the same: They can't believe that I'm having problems in this area. "I can't understand how ANYONE could dislike you!" is what my dad said. Fuck... now this is making me sad.
- stocknoob 6y ago
  Ah, don't get sad -- you seem aware enough to recognize the problem. Just a few thoughts: * These connections are easier when you're in your 20s, single, have time to kill. The company culture may encourage/discourage this too. * If you're a developer, you may be among a less-extroverted cohort, and have to make efforts to reach out vs. being reached-out-to. * These are the hard-to-teach-explicitly items, but is every interaction with coworkers purely about the project? Hobbies, shared interests, movies they've seen, games they play, trips they've done/are going to do, etc.? With a (non-work) shared interest it's hard not to have casual conversations that build a work repoire over time. * There are intangible social signals about willingness to connect (person is overly polite/formal/rigid, facial expressions/body language, warmth of tone and language, etc.). Basically when you sit down next to someone on an airplane, you can tell if they want to chat without having to ask them. Being actively disliked is rarely the issue. You don't dislike the cashier at the grocery store, but the relationship is purely transactional, we can be friendly but let's just get this over with. For some reason, your coworkers may see things this way.

cornel_io 6y ago

Yes, that's a thing if you have good relationships with coworkers who have hiring power in later jobs. Since I switched to being a founder I've firmly disabused most previous coworkers of the notion that I'd ever come to work with them, but I used to regularly hear from them, and now I routinely reach out to the people that I liked working with. If you're not experiencing this, you really can't ask anyone else anything, but you can ask yourself what's wrong. It might just be that you haven't made friends with people who have hiring influence; that said, most people can at least refer folks. More likely is that you aren't getting personally close enough with people at work, so they are not thinking of you. Spend more time interacting on a human level with non-engineers, who are way more often to be influential re: hiring at future jobs. It's also possible that you're not considered a solid worker, or you don't get along with people, but in my experience that's a lot less common than merely not making friends with people who are likely to have jobs to offer in the future. Learning to find and befriet those people is a key career skill.

fma 6y ago

Original commenter here. People don't reach out to me. I reach out to people. I make sure I keep the relationship open. People are way too busy with their lives to maintain connections. Imagine how happy you would be if someone you used to work with reached out to see how you're doing. I'd be very happy. That's why I try to do it...because I know on the other end my former colleague would be happy. I work at a huge company and have been on many teams and projects. Every few days, weeks - I'd ping people just to see what's up and strike a conversation. I don't do it annoyingly...there's a fine balance. You also need to be able to tell who is social and who is not. If you can read that someone has a social personality I'll talk to them more, be friend them...talk to things besides work. There are those who only like to talk about work, and that's fine. Then we just talk about work. I go out of my way to help them out with any problems at work or outside of work. For example someone is a first time home buyer...so I gave advice (I've bought 2 homes in my young career). Another, a manager...his son is in med school, I gave advice (my roommates in grad school were in med school). Another had problems with implementing PGP...so I stayed late one night to help her out.