Saturday, August 09, 2008

I'm usually the second guy to arrive at the office in the morning. Rick, one of my co-workers, gets there before me each day. I don't know Rick very well yet, but he seems pretty sharp and he's always well groomed.

I walked into the office on Friday morning and passed by Rick's desk. He was wearing a cowboy hat. You don't see many cowboy hats in San Francisco, especially in our semi-hip SOMA neighborhood. They're rare animals in a software development environment.

"Hey, Rick!" I called out. "What's up with the hat?"

"I just decided to wear it today," he replied.

"Oh, is it funny hat day?" I asked, eager to make a Simpson's references and banter with my co-worker.

"Does this seem like a funny hat?" he asked, completely seriously.

"Oh...uh... THAT hat? No. Noooo! That's a nice hat! Oktimetoworknow!" I spewed nervously, rushing to my desk.

So, who had "4 weeks" as their answer in the "How Long Will It Take Mike To Offend A New Co-Worker?" pool? You win!

11 comments:

yajeev said...

thanks for all the things-not-to-do-when-you-start-your-new-job tips... no funny hat comments, don't miss the power buttons flush with the computer monitors... keep 'em coming--i start mine in a week, and i'm more than happy to benefit from your missteps.

cheers.

Avery Gray said...

Damn. I had four hours.

Mike said...

Yajeev, I should also add "don't eat too many beans at lunch" and "don't be dumb".

Avery, you're probably right and I never realized it.

Meg S. said...

Hey, things can only get better when you set a low bar! I say it's a great new guy at the office tactic :)

meg

patsy said...

I am just sick, I have been out making garden raiseing chickens and doing a lot of different things and this morning when I turned on my computer I thought I will go see how mike is.
The last time I tuned in to your radio the germans had just bought your company and I made a joke about not letting the germans get you or some lame comment.
I thought you had the best of worlds working at home and now I find that is all in the past I guess the germans did you in the end..
I wish I had not tuned you in this morning. Your blog even looks different. When I got here I wasn't sure where I was!
I wish you the best in your new job.

patsy said...

Well I just had to know what happened with you and the germans so I went back into your past post to find why you went to work in a office. I found this post...
As it turns out, there are many millions of programmers in India, and I'd guess that about 99% of them can be hired for a small fraction of my salary. You don't need to be an efficiency Nazi to see the economic benefits of moving software jobs from San Francisco to India. So, if, hypothetically speaking, you worked for a company run by Germans, it's not difficult to imagine a scenario where management realizes das benefit of das cheap salaries.
so not only did the Nazi get you, you were done in by some poor unclean guy from India.sorry.

Sue said...

Was he wearing boots too?

loveyh said...

I was more optimistic than Avery. I had a week.

Mike said...

Meg, if it weren't for the whole "first impression" issue, I'd totally agree.

Patsy, sorry to traumatize your morning with my new job. I agree that it does suck commuting. For the record, though, the guys I met from India seemed quite clean.

Sue, nary a boot! Nary a cowboy vibe coming off that boy!

Lovey, thanks for your faith in me. I always knew I could count on you.

Meg S. said...

Nah, you're wrong there. Be 'that guy'. The one no one expects anything from. Like Comic the Insult dog. You can only go up from there!
"hey that Mike wasn't what I thought he was" and "you know, he does some pretty good work" soon you'll own the company and you can ban or require Cowboy Hat Days as you wish.

Mike said...

Meg, we'll call that Plan B.