Thursday, June 28th, 2007...9:16 am
How to succeed your first day at a new job
I started my new job yesterday and I can’t believe I haven’t already been promoted. I’m pretty sure my boss went home yesterday testing out new nicknames on me like “Sport”, “Champ”, or “Golden Boy”.
If you, too, want to succeed on the first day of your new job like I did yesterday, follow my example and emulate my professional habits. You’ll be flying past the proverbial corporate ladder and taking non-proverbial liquid lunches in no time.
Here’s how I did it:
1. Ask your boss five minutes into the workday if he has an extra mouse for your laptop. Whine that you work slower with a touchpad. He will think you’re a go-getter.
2. When your new co-workers go to lunch together without asking you, eat your salami and cheese sandwich alone in your cubicle. Plan how you will one day become their leader.
3. Leave the building without an electronic ID badge and then spend 10 minutes in the lobby unable to take the security elevator. Ask each person who walks past, “Do YOU work for [Company Name]? Do YOU work for [Company Name]?” Your boss will think you’re on important business.
4. Forget your new co-workers’ names almost immediately after meeting them. They’ll think they’re not as important as you and you’ll create an instant air of superiority.
5. Stand in front of the automated coffee machine for eight minutes trying to figure out how the contraption works. Joke awkwardly with a fellow office drone about what a Luddite you are. Explain to him what a Luddite is. He’ll think you’re smart.
6. When given the choice, take the cubicle next to the window. People will think you deserve it.
7. Steal Dasani water from the fridge. Pretend it’s yours and make everyone think you’re healthy.
8. Write down all your new user names and passwords on a Post-It so you don’t forget them. Ten minutes later, read the security training guide on how to protect your company’s system integrity. Shred the Post-It to show you can learn from your mistakes.
9. Wonder why no one is complimenting your first-day choice of outfit. Vow never to take GQ’s advice on skinny ties ever again.
10. Attend a one-and-a-half hour staff meeting at the end of the day. Take cryptic notes and nod your head a lot. When your manager tells you he’s going to need your help on something you don’t understand, reply confidently, “You got it!” This will delay the inevitable realization that he’s hired an idiot.
You’re welcome.
23 Comments
June 28th, 2007 at 9:24 am
You really were rockin’ that skinny tie in an “I love me some Bowie” way.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:46 am
You’re a star! There is NOTHING more awkward than the first day of a job. I almost quit the second day of my current job mostly because 10 people came up to me and told me to leave while I could. Some girl actually came in waving her resignation letter. But she was a tool and I figured this out very quickly…
Since I owe you a birthday drink and a new job drink, but you owe me a 1000th comment drink, you’re still up a net of 1 drink on me.
Congrats again! Don’t F it up!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I’ve heard your boss can be bought for a green tea Frappucino and a slice of lemon poppy cake.
Thank me someday.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Thanks. I do in fact have first day of new job on Monday. Biggest current worry is the “no-one will ask me to lunch” one.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:20 am
I do #2 every single day……
One day, they’ll all bow down to golden statues of me.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:27 am
“I do #2 every single day……”
In your cubicle. That’s disgusting!
June 28th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Way to go. Great first impression.
When I first started my job I did almost all of those things in the first week. Now look at me… wait… maybe I’m not such a great example.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I appreciate a good mouse - especially ones featuring those nifty “forward/back” browser thumb buttons - but I’m all about the TrackPoint. I bought an IBM Thinkpad through UNC six years ago, and I’ve decided that sucker is going to last into the next decade. Thusly, I’ve still got three good years of directing my pointer with subtle changes in finger pressure. This may or may not be an otherwise applicable skill …
June 28th, 2007 at 11:02 am
PS That last comment was me.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:11 am
First days are so difficult! Sometimes you start a new job and are so nervous and really want to make a good impression…and then when you get to know people you realize that a lot of them are utter cretins, and you wonder how you could’ve been nervous in the first place. Or maybe that’s just me.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:19 am
At my previous job, I took a 2.5 hour lunch on my second day there. As I walked back, I kept thinking “I’m so fcuking fired.”
Turns out, I’m so not important that no one even noticed I was gone.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Stop me if I’ve told you this story before. It’s the summer before my junior year and it’s my first day of my internship in New York with Harper’s Bazaar (that’s a fashion mag for you uninitiated lads.) I’m on pins and needles trying to seem chic and cool. My effortlessly hip editor walks up to me and says something that sounds like, “Do you like dancing?” So I instantly think, “Oh my God! I’m in! She already thinks I’m cool and wants to take me to hang out with her at some swank club!” I respond with an enthusiastic, “Absolutely!” She sort of chuckles and arches an eyebrow, then tosses a cd down on my desk, saying, “Well then here. Nobody else wants to review it.”
It was a Hanson CD. She’d asked me if I like Hanson.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:57 am
My experience with new jobs: The first person I initially like eventually becomes someone I truly detest, and the person I care for the least eventually becomes my bestest work-friend. So, maybe you can save some time and befriend the least appetizing person on the menu, and see if they’ll have lunch with you.
But watch that salami-breath.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Baby Bien, don’t front. You’re just jealous because you didn’t think of it first. I save 15 minutes a day and it keeps the coworkers away.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I am jealous. I totally can’t believe that I missed that one. Props, mm.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Fantastic! Can’t wait to read your second-day advice. (Hope this one’s working out a little better for you.)
June 28th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
FreckledK - I hadn’t thought about it until I read your comment, but hot damn… you’re 100% right.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Brunch Bird’s comment just made my whole week. That’s awesome.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Excellent info, I liked it.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:01 am
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June 29th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Wow, we think alike.
I started my new job this week as well.
Here are my rules:
1) Bother your boss to give you work. Say that you are really interested in everything he tells you.
2) Not only forget your co-workers names, but selectively choose which ones are worth speaking to. This not only creates an air of superiority, but makes you a leader of a new clique, which you single-handedly created!
3) Complain about one thing. Too much complaining makes you sound annoying, but too little makes you seem like a loser. I chose to complain about the air conditioning. I think that went over quite well.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Just stumbled upon your blog. LOVE IT!!!
August 15th, 2007 at 8:23 am
[…] music, reading all the books I want, talking to my family, planning trips abroad, kicking ass at my new job, playing softball, taking weekends in NYC, improving my blog, etc. In short, becoming […]
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