The Communal Office
The first day at a new job is always an interesting experience and mine was probably more unique than most:
-I traveled 1,975 miles for my first day;
-I flew having just recovered from a severe sinus infection…ouch;
-Getting a speeding ticket within 20 minutes of landing in Austin…double ouch;
I will give the police officer some credit, he was extremely kind to me and seemed to almost felt guilty giving me the ticket…even after he saw my Massachusetts license and my Red Sox cap. As I drove the rest of the way to the office I started thinking about all the different aspects of a ‘first day’.
Learning a ton of new names, finding your way around the office, seeing how quickly you receive your first spam (3.25 hours), making good first impressions, and most importantly figuring out what people do for lunch. All of it happened and will continue to happen throughout this first week. The community of an office is a very powerful entity. In only two days I’ve found myself already jumping deep into conversations concerning a variety of topics; eastern European hacking community, the debate between voluntary “unconferences” and paid traditional conferences, western religions, social media news release benefits, the use of Twitter for network test engineers and so much more.
While we all talk about community while Twittering at work let’s not forget that one of our most valuable communities can be our co-workers. How do you interact with your working community?
–Kyle Flaherty
April 16th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Kyle,
I dont envy you the first day - or the ticket for that matter (I always worry the most on a new job about who I will eat lunch with :))
Anyway, as to your question on interacting with co-workers - I work for an all virtual agency, so we have to work even harder to interact, but we do it in some interesting and silly sounding ways that really have been working for us.
One funny thing we do is every Friday we have an IM theme day (like favorite reality show villian, or scariest bunny picture) and everyone changes their buddy icon to suit the theme, which then usually leads to a lot of fun chatter back and forth about what everyone has.
Its silly and little but everyone seems to love it and its things like that that can make you feel connected to a group, especially when you have no central office.
Hope the new job goes well.
-Lisa
April 16th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Good luck in the new city/new job! Looking forward to more reports from Red Sox Nation - SW.
Your message is a good one. Sometimes it’s far too easy to simply IM or email someone in the office when you have a question. Get up. Go for a walk. Find that person and have a live conversation. I use too many technologies to list when connecting with people on my team, but it always comes back to face time. Sometimes the best ideas come out of seemingly random f2f encounters.
Crisp and sunny in Boston today… Spring is here! ;-)
@jstorerj
April 16th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Lisa, I love the IM theme day, especially with a virtual workforce. Our pace these days makes it challenging to connect with colleagues, even when we are face-to-face, so little things like that can make a big impact.
Jim, since we just put out house on the market in Boston I’ll be going back and forth, so it’s nice to know that I won’t be coming back to ice and sleet ;) Besides family I think I’ll miss NESN most of all.
/kff
April 16th, 2008 at 6:36 am
A speeding ticket ALREADY? What a “Masshole” you must be on the roads there. ;)
April 16th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Let me know if you need a good lawyer. I’ve got some recommendations.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Good luck with the new job Kyle!
Alex
P.S. Have you smoked any meat yet since you have arrived in Texas?
April 16th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Todd, you know it my friend!
Jeremy, I may be calling you soon.
Al, I smoked an entire pig last night on the balcony of my hotel room, they are kind enough to supply you with everything.
/kff