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How to Stop Feeling Like the New Kid at Work

May 17th, 2019

When you’re new at work, you experience a kind of double-sided coin. Everyone gives you a break, since you’re new and you haven’t yet had time to learn the ropes. But at the same time, all the breaks and indulgences you receive may leave you feeling a little patronized or excluded. Sure, you don’t know anyone here and you’re still finding your feet … but being treated like the “new kid” for too long can be unpleasant, and it can interfere with the development of your relationship with your new lifestyle.

So, move through that early chapter as quickly as possible. The sooner you’re up and running, the sooner you can have honest conversations with others, reveal your true self, gain trust and become part of the social fabric. Here’s how.

Make yourself selectively vulnerable.

When you don’t know something, just ask. When you need help navigating a new software system, get help. When you can’t find the exit door or the restroom, ask for directions. Don’t hide or pretend. Come clean, be bold, admit your ignorance and get it resolved. Be vulnerable, get your answers, and get it done. At the same time, be careful; some forms of vulnerability are not for public access just yet. Emotional stress, anxiety and personal or family information should stay under lock and key for a little while longer.

Be uncharacteristically friendly.

How friendly are you on a scale of one to ten? Take your answer and add two points. That’s how open, friendly and forward you should try to be at your new job. Of course, your extroversion and high energy will revert to the status quo in time, but meanwhile, you’ll learn some new names and faces and make some connections, a task that gets harder the longer you wait.

Take notes.

Make things easy on yourself by writing down new information instead of trying to remember it and hold it all in your head. You can even write down names, titles and key information about your new colleagues. The faster you learn who they are, what they do and how they relate to you, the better.

Accept invitations that come your way.

If you’re invited to lunch, go. If you’re drawn into a pleasant conversation, allow it to happen. You’ll thank yourself later when you’ve had a chance to become (insert your name) instead of “that new person over there.”  At the same time, don’t worry if you have to say no. Another opportunity to connect will come along soon.

For more on how to integrate yourself into the social and professional machinery of your new workplace, talk to the career management experts at Merritt.

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