Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/the-new-guy/5019816/
The late comedian George Carlin once said, “. . . The worst two days of a person’s life is the day they lose a job and the day they find one.” Losing a job is certainly scary, but starting a new one has its stress as well. Remember being the “new guy”? You meet new people who are speaking in acronyms you don’t understand. You find yourself attempting to decipher every phrase and movement so that you can quickly conform to what you think are the cultural nuances. In the company’s attempt to bring you up to speed as quickly as possible, you are ushered into several meetings with various people you will be working with and find yourself smiling, nodding, and praying that you can remember the various players’ names. You remind yourself of Mark Twain’s advice:“. . . Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
So this routine goes on for awhile, where one feels each day is like having an encyclopedia read to you and then slowly but surely one’s “Blink,” (Gladwell, 2005) begins to go into overdrive. All the sensory stimulation motivates the brain synapses into full ...