5 ms·

My Dad was a police officer and I moved around a lot as a kid, so I had more than a decade of experience being the new kid before I graduated high school. I fig

by hluska 5y ago

My Dad was a police officer and I moved around a lot as a kid, so I had more than a decade of experience being the new kid before I graduated high school. I figured out some things and still use them when I’m new in organizations. 1.) Learn names. 2.) Avoid tribes at first. It’s tempting to latch onto the first group that welcomes you, but try to avoid this. For at least the first few weeks, focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people over deep relationships with few. 3.) Find the cool. Starting something new often triggers something like mourning. Give yourself space to mourn the old, but force yourself space to find extremely cool things in the new place. You’re closing one door and opening another. Hunt the cool! It’s easier to do this if you form lots of relationships early on. 4.) Everyone is shy. 5.) I got to know two types of cops’ kids: - “The place I lived two moves ago was the best.” - “Whatever town I live in now is the best.” Guess who had an easier time making friends. 6.) DIY. Your new town might suck and the place you lived last move may have actually been the best town on earth. It got that way because people had ideas and did it themselves. You got the idea from someone else so 5% of the hard work is already done…:) 7.) Once you’ve been the new person, your most important task is to always help new people.

ativzzz 5y ago
> focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people Any tips for doing this in a remote company? Just be more active in random slack channels? Reach out to random individuals?
- wara23arish 5y ago
  I need help with this badly. I recently started at a remote company. I think do a better than average job at socializing and meeting people in person. But definitely worse on slack, I overthink my messages that I type and end up not participating since I feel it can be misunderstood. I also feel that I dont want to be seen as a “time-waster”. Fwiw, i also struggle with this with my american friends on discord, i just dont know how to navigate this sort of stuff and whats okay and not okay.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- tobyjsullivan 5y ago
  What about scheduling meet-and-greet 1:1's? If you've ever worked on a team that uses Donut - think something like that. A chat to meet each other and, ideally, talk about stuff other than work (but I find work talk is my go-to when the room goes silent and that's fine too). I'll usually ping someone on slack with a quick message like: > Hey <name>, I just joined the engineering team and I'm scheduling a quick chat with everyone as part of my onboarding. Would you be free for a chat at <X:XX> tomorrow? Then book it as soon as they say yes or propose a time. Don't worry about the people who don't respond. Move on for now - you'll meet them later. The audience is usually: - Everyone on the engineering team - Every manager up the management chain (up to CEO for a smaller company, probably have to stop somewhere before that in bigger companies) - Every "lead" type person in all adjacent groups (Design, product, QA, customer support, operations, etc.). Rule of thumb: whoever you'd go talk to first (or, often, who your manager would go talk to first) if you had a general question about that area. - Anyone who you encounter that seems like they'd be fun to talk to/friendly.
  - ativzzz 5y ago
    Nice ideas, thanks! I've done this before with all the people on my team but it felt weird to do that to others outside my team for some reason.
- earleybird 5y ago
  Make the occasional "no reason" call/chat, just a 'how are you doing' to someone you've newly met in an online meeting. One of our exec directors (who is by nature fairly approachable) hosts a weekly drop-in online meeting where anyone can stop by and chat about anything - often non work topics. Doing these things historically would be considered quite of of character for me so I understand it can be difficult to do.
- spangry 5y ago
  This will sound counter-intuitive, but calling individuals to ask for small favours is a good way to build rapport and to learn more about your colleagues. Most people are very happy to help out the new guy, and asking a small favour is a good pretext for starting broader conversations about the topic they're an expert in or, even better, are passionate about. For example: "Hey John, I'm spangry and I just started this week in team foo. So and so tells me that you're the resident expert on x. I'm planning to do some work related to x and figured, given I'm new and all, I should talk to you before starting. Have you got a moment to talk about x?" Then ask your favour and they will likely oblige. After you've thanked them, that's your opportunity to launch into a more general conversation where you show interest in their background or subject of interest (e.g. 'So how long have you been at [company] for? Got any tips for a new starter?' or 'I did a little research on x before calling and read that y is a big issue at the moment. Just curious, what's your take on y issue?') It goes without saying that being genuinely interested and curious about them helps greatly. I think the above works because (1) most people want to help, and they remember what it was like to be new (2) it's respectful, even flattering, that you're coming to them for their expertise and (3) broadening the conversation (but still keeping it on safe ground) generates additional conversation paths and further opportunities for building rapport. Lastly, asking for small favours (which are obliged) may actually make people like you more as a post-hoc rationalisation for why they did you the favour (this is known as the Ben Franklin effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect).
  - ativzzz 5y ago
    That's a great point. I think as a software engineer working at small companies I'm used to just brute forcing the answers to these kinds of questions through google/reading code/trial and error but for the sake of creating relationships it's beneficial to ask these kinds of questions as well.
- hluska 5y ago
  “Hi Ativzzz, I’m Greg. I just started here a couple of days ago. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” I genuinely look forward to getting to know everyone I work with and so just leading with my name, why they should care and the truth usually works best for me. As I start figuring stuff out, I’ll build relationships, help and ask for help. But early on, I just like to be basic old me.
aprdm 5y ago
This is great, I'm going through something similar as the OP and definitely helpful!
ttyp3 5y ago
- “Friends? This town is just the place where I live and go to school every day, before moving on to the next destination.”
- stuxnet79 5y ago
  Reminds me of this scene from Tokyo Drift: https://youtu.be/BkZ7MnnKQow https://youtu.be/BkZ7MnnKQow
- hluska 5y ago
  I would have really identified with that when I was in the thick of it. It felt like the second I moved, I lost the only thing I had in common with my friends. It felt like a constant loneliness march, where strangers would become friends and then go right back to being strangers. I’m really lucky that I had a computer, access to lots of books and really good parents (who are both interesting people). I could have easily taken an entirely different path and it would have ended very badly.
alostpuppy 5y ago
This is amazing advice!
OJFord 5y ago
This is completely tangential, but I'm curious - police officers move around a lot? Am I just ignorant to that, or it's a US thing, or something specific to your father's specialty within policing?
- hluska 5y ago
  It was a combination of his force (RCMP has different types of jurisdiction across Canada) and his specialty.

by hluska 5y ago

ativzzz 5y ago

> focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people Any tips for doing this in a remote company? Just be more active in random slack channels? Reach out to random individuals?

wara23arish 5y ago
I need help with this badly. I recently started at a remote company. I think do a better than average job at socializing and meeting people in person. But definitely worse on slack, I overthink my messages that I type and end up not participating since I feel it can be misunderstood. I also feel that I dont want to be seen as a “time-waster”. Fwiw, i also struggle with this with my american friends on discord, i just dont know how to navigate this sort of stuff and whats okay and not okay.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tobyjsullivan 5y ago
What about scheduling meet-and-greet 1:1's? If you've ever worked on a team that uses Donut - think something like that. A chat to meet each other and, ideally, talk about stuff other than work (but I find work talk is my go-to when the room goes silent and that's fine too). I'll usually ping someone on slack with a quick message like: > Hey <name>, I just joined the engineering team and I'm scheduling a quick chat with everyone as part of my onboarding. Would you be free for a chat at <X:XX> tomorrow? Then book it as soon as they say yes or propose a time. Don't worry about the people who don't respond. Move on for now - you'll meet them later. The audience is usually: - Everyone on the engineering team - Every manager up the management chain (up to CEO for a smaller company, probably have to stop somewhere before that in bigger companies) - Every "lead" type person in all adjacent groups (Design, product, QA, customer support, operations, etc.). Rule of thumb: whoever you'd go talk to first (or, often, who your manager would go talk to first) if you had a general question about that area. - Anyone who you encounter that seems like they'd be fun to talk to/friendly.
- ativzzz 5y ago
  Nice ideas, thanks! I've done this before with all the people on my team but it felt weird to do that to others outside my team for some reason.
earleybird 5y ago
Make the occasional "no reason" call/chat, just a 'how are you doing' to someone you've newly met in an online meeting. One of our exec directors (who is by nature fairly approachable) hosts a weekly drop-in online meeting where anyone can stop by and chat about anything - often non work topics. Doing these things historically would be considered quite of of character for me so I understand it can be difficult to do.
spangry 5y ago
This will sound counter-intuitive, but calling individuals to ask for small favours is a good way to build rapport and to learn more about your colleagues. Most people are very happy to help out the new guy, and asking a small favour is a good pretext for starting broader conversations about the topic they're an expert in or, even better, are passionate about. For example: "Hey John, I'm spangry and I just started this week in team foo. So and so tells me that you're the resident expert on x. I'm planning to do some work related to x and figured, given I'm new and all, I should talk to you before starting. Have you got a moment to talk about x?" Then ask your favour and they will likely oblige. After you've thanked them, that's your opportunity to launch into a more general conversation where you show interest in their background or subject of interest (e.g. 'So how long have you been at [company] for? Got any tips for a new starter?' or 'I did a little research on x before calling and read that y is a big issue at the moment. Just curious, what's your take on y issue?') It goes without saying that being genuinely interested and curious about them helps greatly. I think the above works because (1) most people want to help, and they remember what it was like to be new (2) it's respectful, even flattering, that you're coming to them for their expertise and (3) broadening the conversation (but still keeping it on safe ground) generates additional conversation paths and further opportunities for building rapport. Lastly, asking for small favours (which are obliged) may actually make people like you more as a post-hoc rationalisation for why they did you the favour (this is known as the Ben Franklin effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect).
- ativzzz 5y ago
  That's a great point. I think as a software engineer working at small companies I'm used to just brute forcing the answers to these kinds of questions through google/reading code/trial and error but for the sake of creating relationships it's beneficial to ask these kinds of questions as well.
hluska 5y ago
“Hi Ativzzz, I’m Greg. I just started here a couple of days ago. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” I genuinely look forward to getting to know everyone I work with and so just leading with my name, why they should care and the truth usually works best for me. As I start figuring stuff out, I’ll build relationships, help and ask for help. But early on, I just like to be basic old me.

aprdm 5y ago

This is great, I'm going through something similar as the OP and definitely helpful!

ttyp3 5y ago

- “Friends? This town is just the place where I live and go to school every day, before moving on to the next destination.”

stuxnet79 5y ago
Reminds me of this scene from Tokyo Drift: https://youtu.be/BkZ7MnnKQow https://youtu.be/BkZ7MnnKQow
hluska 5y ago
I would have really identified with that when I was in the thick of it. It felt like the second I moved, I lost the only thing I had in common with my friends. It felt like a constant loneliness march, where strangers would become friends and then go right back to being strangers. I’m really lucky that I had a computer, access to lots of books and really good parents (who are both interesting people). I could have easily taken an entirely different path and it would have ended very badly.

alostpuppy 5y ago

This is amazing advice!

OJFord 5y ago

This is completely tangential, but I'm curious - police officers move around a lot? Am I just ignorant to that, or it's a US thing, or something specific to your father's specialty within policing?

hluska 5y ago
It was a combination of his force (RCMP has different types of jurisdiction across Canada) and his specialty.