Crappy or annoying things when you start a new job

[Whisky2014]

Managers haven't put the IT request in for a laptop for you or they have but IT haven't actioned it yet and you wait days before you can log in. Or you do have the equipment but no log in ID.

Forgetting peoples names because you meet a lot of people in one go. But they are only meeting one person and easily remember your name = guilt about not remembering and awkwardness to ask again.

Being a loner for lunch. Managers or a colleague should take you to lunch on your first day to help you settle in but understandably, their lunch hour is their own and can't be arsed.

Being given a million online learning courses to do but no actual hands on training.

Please add to list if you have any!

Missing the pay deadline so you have another January before you get paid.

Not knowing the tea/coffee/milk/mugs etiquette.

Not knowing your way around or where anything is.
Feeling awkward asking questions.
Wondering when lunch is cos your starving.

Oh good ones cant.

I didn't even get shown where the canteen or toilets were on my first day of my new job.

Navigating all the "portals" on the companies intranet site.

Fucking Yammer!

'Here's your computer, let me know if you need anything'

As if you instantly know how to do the job and everything about the business

That's so true sleepy!

Coming in with work clothes on the first friday because no one bothered to mention it's dress down friday

Being put in a room and starting your job on your own and finding your, very essential printer, won’t print because your computer sign on hasn’t been set up to authorise you to do the things you need to do........and you don’t know who to contact to sort it. 5 years on I still don’t know a couple of people’s names because they don’t wear their name badges and I’m too embarrassed to ask which one is which

Being introduced to people you will never see again, but you don't know that at the time so you try to remember their names & what they do.
It's unnecessary mental load!

I work for the NHS. The mandatory training is tedious. IT training that should take 8 minutes but there's some idiot in the room who can't work a mouse and it ends up taking all day.

Yep, yep, yep.

Not being able to get any food or drink because you have to pay via your security card and it's not been issued yet.

Not being shown how to do something crucial and you only find out when you're doing the job and find it's a task you often have to do but your trainer didn't show you because she considered it a too-easy option. Incredulous tones of "didn't you cover this in training?"

Your security card has been issued with your picture on it, but security hasn't allowed you access to anything. IT, tea room, your office, your department, your floor, your building. Nothing. And takes forever in getting anything done because it has to be requested by a senior member of staff. Again.

When you suspect a task is completely unnecessary and on asking why we need to do this you're told "Because we've always done it". Yes, but what value does it add to our output? "None, we've just always done it".

Haha yes to the "we've always done it". Yes...But why?! Argh
Yy to not being trained properly and yy to the security badge.

Not being told you need a photo taken on first day!

Reverting back to a teenager and wondering who the hell your going to eat lunch with.

Realising nobody can be arsed to train you and they find you asking for work irritating so just sitting there shuffling papers and scrolling down emails to make yourself look busy.

People taking about funny things that happened a month before you started and expecting you to find it funny.

Someone showing you where the toilet is 0.0008 seconds after you started and forgetting but being too embarrassed to ask where they are a month in.

Nobody mentioning the tea and coffee kitty you've not contributed to until Sandra from accounts passively aggressively mentions you've not paid for that drop of milk in your tea.

We ask all line managers to arrange a 'buddy' for any new starts. The 'buddy' agrees to be company at lunch time, introduce them to others, help answer all the 'silly' questions etc. Either the line manager or the buddy will take them on a tour of the premises and introduce them to key people.

It can take a while to get the security badges made and supplied to our building, so we ask new staff to send a photo in advance, which can help.

We also impress on them they should bring in passport or whatever ahead of their start date if possible, so this can be checked and then their IT login can be activated for their start date, as that make a huge difference.

We allocate a desk in advance, put their name on it and provide a selection of stationery to make them feel welcome.

I personally deliver a 1-hour induction in week and send them a PowerPoint with links to everything I can think of. Some of the info is provided in paper form on day 1 anyway, just in case they don't have IT access yet.

(Can you tell I'm in charge of new starts?[ )

Hot desking but being told actually you can't sit there because To-be-fair-Claire will be taking that spot.

Hearing the sounds of messages being received on smartphones meaning my co-workers are flouting the 'No Phones on the Sale Floor rule and not getting pulled up about it and yet I walk out of the break room with my clearly switched off phone to return to my bag and get pounced on immediately.
I hated call centre work

Not knowing the etiquette around things like eating at your desk, having your mobile ring-tone off, listening to headphones etc. I've worked at lots of places and it's all different.

The hardest thing for me is figuring out the dynamics between other people i.e. the two people who are exes, the two women who are actually besties from high school, the person who seems super nice on day one but is actually quite odd and always latches onto the new person for company. What people are actually 'friends' with each other and who are just colleagues - coz it's sooo awkward to plonk yourself down between two people in the lunch room and realise you've interrupted a really personal conversation

Not knowing the etiquette around things like eating at your desk,

Or even what to eat in some cases. I'm still a bit about that particular office.

At lunchtime can you use your laptop to go on Facebook check your emails etc or is that not ok.

Oh god, I absolutely cringe when we get new starters at work. Our IT is so crap and slow, so even when we’ve put the request in months before it’s still not ready for when they start. Ditto security passes. Last time we had a senior level person in our team on £45K+ spend his first weeks doing nothing much except call IT because his access was so pitiful he couldn’t really do anything else until it was sorted! He did his best, asking people to print documents off etc so he could look through them, but I cringed!

My team is also crap for the “welcoming stuff” like explaining kitchen etiquette, lunch times, core hours etc. We’re another place that “hot desks” but actually everyone has “their” desk. I remember how frustrating it was when I started so I make a point of explaining these things to new starters, even though it’s not my job!

2 weeks without work then a big shove in the deep in with no clue.

Security pass not working so having to lug laptop home in 40 degree heat as no locker working without security badge.

Entire team working from home.

Hot desking so not knowing where your actual team is when they're in.

Knowing when dh gets that job I'll probably have to give up the role anyway.

Knowing if dh doesn't get the job I have to keep going in.

I'm 2.5 weeks in. Feels like I've been there forever but I know FA.

Being given loads of online courses to do which would actually be a great way to fill in those quiet moments you have because you're not yet at the point where you generate your own work.....except, they require sound as they have a full narrative but sound has been disabled on all computers!!! So you get to sit there watching the videos, watching a cursor moving round the screen and guessing that when nothing is happening on screen, there's probably something fascinating being explained!

Being shown how to find workpapers/learn office processes, but having to ask again, maybe twice or 3 times. Feeling a fraud when impt stuff doesnt stay in my brain until I've done it a couple of times. I know it, & understand software but 1st day/week nerves make me a bit forgetful.