{"id":6145,"date":"2011-06-16T01:31:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T08:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=6145"},"modified":"2011-05-09T15:41:40","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T22:41:40","slug":"some-sage-advise-for-your-first-day-at-a-new-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=6145","title":{"rendered":"Some sage advise for your first day at a new job."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On our first day, we typically want to “prove ourselves”. We want to show that they made a great decision in hiring us. We feel the need to jump in and be productive right away. Although our intentions are very good, in our zeal to impress, we can even go a little overboard. These strategies come from Don Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. It’s a great book and an easy\/fast read. I recommend it to everyone. The agreement were written for life in general. But I’ve adopted them for the first day on a new job.<\/p>\n

We covered the first 2 in yesterday\u2019s article.<\/p>\n

1) Be impeccable in word and action\u00a0 and\u00a0 2) Don’t assume.<\/p>\n

Let’ s continue….<\/p>\n

3) Don’t take anything personally.<\/p>\n

When you first arrive in the office as a “new employee” – you can’t have done anything wrong. \u00a0 Any negative issues that you may be encountering today is simply residue from other peoples’ lives. Don’t take anything that is happening personally.\u00a0 I know this from personal experience.\u00a0 I was hired by a small firm with 4 partners. \u00a0\u00a0 I was interviewed by 3 of the 4 partners and was hired on the spot.\u00a0\u00a0 They offered me the job before I walked out of the interview. \u00a0\u00a0 I was very excited.<\/p>\n

The following week I was called into the 4th partner’s office. He started instructing me on honesty, loyalty, integrity, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 His delivery was not the best.\u00a0\u00a0 It sounded like he was accusing me of things and suggesting that I would be “caught” if I tried anything disloyal.\u00a0\u00a0 As you can imagine, in normal circumstances I may have been really, really upset to be accused like this. \u00a0\u00a0 But, as I was sitting there — I was very relaxed in the knowing that “hey — I’m not the kind of person that would do these things he is suggesting.\u00a0\u00a0 And if I were — I haven’t been here long enough to do any of these things he is suggesting.” \u00a0 I knew from the start that he was carrying some baggage from a previous encounter with someone else. \u00a0\u00a0 And that, perhaps, venting to me was his way of releasing this. \u00a0 It really had nothing to do with me at all.<\/p>\n

This was a great illustration of Don Ruiz’s 3rd point.<\/p>\n

4) Always do your best.<\/p>\n

The forth agreement by Don Ruiz is to always do your best.\u00a0 Your best will be different depending upon the task, your energy level and even the people you are working with.\u00a0 Your best will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.\u00a0 Make your best decisions with the information that you currently have and in the situation that you are currently in.\u00a0 Acknowledge that things will change, new information will come in, new schedules and deadlines will appear.\u00a0 This is very natural in our ever-changing, fast-paced work environment.\u00a0 Be at ease with change.\u00a0 Under any circumstance, simply do your best and just keep the big picture in mind.<\/p>\n

As a new employee, acknowledge that you don’t have all the information in front of you.\u00a0 Often times, the rules and procedures are more “experienced” than written down.\u00a0 Many of your colleagues have been in this environment for many years.\u00a0 They have lived through the unwritten procedures and perhaps it’s “obvious” to them.\u00a0\u00a0 It is inevitable that you will trip on some of these invisible understandings.\u00a0 Just continue to do your best and write them down for the next unsuspecting victim — I mean new employee.\u00a0 Take this as a challenge to document and create a nice orientation packet for your future mentee.\u00a0 This is the perfect time to write an effective orientation guide because you will be writing it as a “new employee”.\u00a0 You will understand exactly how you need to know at the time you need to know it.<\/p>\n

Let me know if this helps.\u00a0 And, if you do peruse the original The Four Agreement book, please let me know your thoughts about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On our first day, we typically want to “prove ourselves”. We want to show that they made a great decision in hiring us. We feel the need to jump in and be productive right away. Although our intentions are very good, in our zeal to impress, we can even go a little overboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1508,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,845,6,1,855,847,899],"tags":[39,13,33,64,1370,17,54],"class_list":["post-6145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals","category-priorities-2","category-human-resources","category-communications","category-miscellaneous","category-pmbok-process-executing","category-self-leadership","category-career-2","tag-best-practices","tag-career-development","tag-common-sense","tag-communication","tag-leadership","tag-lessons-learned","tag-soft-skills"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1508"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}