Use Your Unfair Advantage To Create an Unforgettable First Day For New Hires

http://lnbogen.com/2013/04/11/how-to-use-your-unfair-advantage-to-create-an-unforgettable-first-day-for-new-hires/

by oellenbogen • 13 years ago

37 24 13 years ago

lnbogen.com

pashabitz• 13 years ago

This is good stuff! I am adopting it for the next hire in my company.

elliptic• 13 years ago

Jesus, this sounds like my nightmare. Just lead me to my cube and let me get to work.

edgo• 13 years ago

That's why it is very important to touch the company culture topic during the interview and find out if it's a good match.

scottshea• 13 years ago

I have to admit I was a bit scared when I read this too. My introvertness makes me want to run from stuff like this. However I do have to say that there should be some effort to greet the new person. I had one job where I was sat in a cube and no one around me me said hello. I had to reach out and they were so dispirited I got a lukewarm response. It was a chilling effect for a first day.

Oh and I could not do anything with my machine since it was not set up.

kijin2• 13 years ago

Exactly.

There are some types of people who like it when you dig into their Facebook profile to find out who their favorite band is. But there are just as many people who will find it creepy that you stalked them online, or who will get outright angry because they expect separation between their job and their hobby. My hunch is that more of the first type become managers and more of the second type become makers, although I don't have any data to back it up.

Likewise, there are some types of people who obsess over doing memorable (but otherwise not particularly valuable) things for the sake of memorability, whereas for others, the first day is just another fucking day and nothing would be more memorable than actually writing a beautiful piece of code and seeing it in production. I'm guessing that the first type of people are responsible for most of those corporate picnics that result in severely interrupted coding sessions.

If you're the first type and you like to work with the same type of people and you want to make it a company tradition, by all means do so. It's your company after all. But please don't make it a surprise. Be very upfront about your "traditions" when you interview candidates, so that the other half of the human population will know well to stay away from your company.

Disclaimer: Of course I'm exaggerating. Still, work != party.

pbiggar2• 13 years ago

This isn't about embarrassing you. This is about showing that they care about you. Clearly, in your case they would prepare something to suit you - perhaps a gourmet basket sent to your house or similar, in a way that wouldn't embarrass you.

kijin2• 13 years ago

@elliptic's complaint is not about embarrassment, it's about respecting people's conceptions of appropriateness. For example, if he likes to keep work strictly separate from the rest of his life, having anything delivered to his home that isn't strictly necessary would be a violation of his principles and therefore a gesture of disrespect.

For another example, people with Asperger's can look embarrassed when you violate their rules. But the symptoms that neurotypicals tend to interpret as embarrassment can just as well be a sign of deep indignation.

Actually caring for a person means respecting their opinions and preferences, up to and including a preference for an utterly unmemorable day at work, or a preference that their boss does not exploit unfair advantages.

davidroberts2• 13 years ago

I'm starting a new job in a week. Just in case they read HN, I really like brand-new Ferraris....

epoxyhockey• 13 years ago

My more memorable first days of work consisted of walking into a relaxing setting, sitting through new hire orientation where I learned everything about the company spoken by the heads of every department, being served free food all day and receiving a gift bag of chachkies at the end of it all. That process always made me feel like royalty: a few days of interacting with senior management (and other new hires) and being served free food.

swanson• 13 years ago

I think this is good concept - though I'm not sure if I would take it to the levels that they did (the Facebook part was a bit much for me...).

Even a small thing - a personalized postcard in the mail that arrives a few days before you start - would make me smile and feel welcomed.

There is a fine line though, and the difficulty is that the line is different for every person. Some people would love a personalized cake celebrating their first day, others would not.

davidroberts2• 13 years ago

The Facebook thing struck me as kind of creepy too. I'm not sure I would feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that my new employers had been crawling through my Facebook pages.

pyre• 13 years ago

  >  Some people would love a personalized
  > cake celebrating their first day, others
  > would not.

Not to mention that you don't really know them personally yet. It would suck to show up for your first day and have a cake that you were allergic to or couldn't eat for dietary reasons (vegan, diabetic, etc).

evck• 13 years ago

I think my most memorable first day was going around a track in a Tesla Roadster, and a pre-production Model S. It's going to be hard to top that one.

zeteo• 13 years ago

And... the (mandatory) fun at work movement reaches a new low of creepiness. Guys, what happened to professionalism? privacy? letting employees decide how much (if any) of their personal life gets meshed up with work?

joonix• 13 years ago

What happened to ... you are being paid a lot of money to do this job, welcome, we look forward to getting to know you, in the mean time here's your desk.

Is our generation incapable of being productive unless we are treated and spoiled like children?

I don't want to have NERF fights at work. I don't want to go to a party or for drinks three times a week after work. I don't want to feel like my employer is a fraternity. I want to get my work done and return to my life at home. I guess this means I'd quickly get purged from this kind of company?

ruswick2• 13 years ago

Moreover, doing this sort of thing is presumptuous and may actually work to the detriment of the employee. What brings one pleasure at home may inhibit productivity at work. For instance, I have a large number of art pieces, decorative objects, lamps, etc., at home that create a certain aesthetic that I enjoy when not working. However, I prefer to work in a relatively spartan environment, and superfluous items or clutter just creates more mental overhead and makes concentration harder.

ruswick2• 13 years ago

Obviously, creating a welcoming environment for a new hire is beneficial to all parties, but this is somewhat absurd. One's workplace and one's personal life are and ought to be, by default, separate and disjunct. It should be the employee exclusively who chooses whether to bring their work home or bring their personal life into their occupational life.

There is something deeply disconcerting about having an employer go out of their way to meld one's personal life and work life from day one.

RandallBrown• 13 years ago

Let me tell you about my worst first day.

I got to work half an hour before my manager and sat in an empty office by myself. When the manager finally showed up, he gave me a box that had a new computer and said "Here you go, set it up." I didn't have a keyboard, mouse, or ethernet cable and I had to go scrounge them second hand.

I spent the next week pretty much doing nothing but reading through manuals and talking to nobody but the cafeteria workers.

mgarfias• 13 years ago

This article fails to show what benefits this has for either the company or the employee. I did, however, end up slightly creeped out.

JFrolich• 13 years ago

od2m• 13 years ago

My first corporate gig-- I had a horrible first week, they dumped me in an office, no assignment, no computer… nothing. They said another guy would be starting in a week and we'd get started then. I just sat there for a week.

I decided when the new guy started I'd try and make his first day better than mine-- I introduced myself and took him to lunch and ended up making a life long friend, some years later he was a groomsman at my wedding. Making a good friend at work has happened twice in my life, and let me tell you there's nothing that eases the burden of labor like working with a good friend every day.

wink• 13 years ago

I do agree the Facebook part was a bit much, but I find the general idea really good.

Maybe it's me being with small companies but we have had a significant percentage of personally referred new colleagues, so there's someone already knowing them anyway.

pasbesoin• 13 years ago

There are [extroverts] and there are [introverts]. You can choose your own two words for those placeholders.

As an [introvert], I would find such an approach both overwhelming and uncomfortable.

In work socializing, as in most of the rest of life, I believe in "opt-in". I'd rather have the choice to engage when and where I see fit.

I'll take one more pass at this: The new person is joining an established social structure (through the convention and primary focus of getting work done and earning a living).

From my perspective, the type of attitude described in the OP forces a lot of social interaction, and perhaps an immediate, corresponding sense of social obligation / reciprocity upon the new person who is, grand gesture aside, still an outsider.

I would rather get to know people and have the chance to decide who and how I genuinely like, at my own pace.

I know how to get along professionally with most anyone. Whom I like and with whom I want to really socialize, is my decision and is a more nuanced decision that takes some time.

And I don't do "fake". Turning the "social" to 11 on the first day, feels like forcing me towards either awkward, if and as I'm not ready to genuinely reciprocate at similar volume and enthusiasm, or towards fake.

Help me to focus on the work, so that I feel like I'm up to speed and contributing. On my own, I'll feel more comfortable, socially, then. That, to me, feels more like putting things in the right order. Be friendly, sure -- but with a bit of reserve, so that I can feel comfortable exercising the same.

Use Your Unfair Advantage To Create an Unforgettable First Day For New Hires

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