<story><title>Ask HN: I&apos;m changing my job after a 15-year tenure. How should I proceed?</title><text>Hello HN, I&amp;#x27;ve been at my current company for the past 15 years. I&amp;#x27;ve taken on different roles where I started as a software engineer, before being promoted to lead, and then to staff engineer. I know my current company by heart. I know how to get things done. I know who to talk to and how to talk to the right people. I know the processes of my company in and out.&lt;p&gt;I decided to get out of my comfort zone. Try something new, I told myself on and on for the past 3 years. And I finally did it. I&amp;#x27;m changing jobs.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m going to a new company, where I&amp;#x27;ll be doing something slightly similar to my previous role, but in a totally new field. I don&amp;#x27;t know anyone there. The people seem extremely friendly and fun to work with. This is what I felt in the hiring process.&lt;p&gt;It feels like I forgot how I got good at this. Technically, I have no doubts to get things done. However, on the people level, I have no clue how to get started. How do I make &amp;quot;new friends&amp;quot; at work?&lt;p&gt;What do you usually do when you switch to a new company? How do you go from the &amp;quot;new clueless person at work&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;oh hey Mike, I&amp;#x27;ll need your help this afternoon&amp;quot;?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ativzzz</author><text>&amp;gt; focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people&lt;p&gt;Any tips for doing this in a remote company? Just be more active in random slack channels? Reach out to random individuals?</text></item><item><author>hluska</author><text>My Dad was a police officer and I moved around a lot as a kid, so I had more than a decade of experience being the new kid before I graduated high school. I figured out some things and still use them when I’m new in organizations.&lt;p&gt;1.) Learn names.&lt;p&gt;2.) Avoid tribes at first. It’s tempting to latch onto the first group that welcomes you, but try to avoid this. For at least the first few weeks, focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people over deep relationships with few.&lt;p&gt;3.) Find the cool. Starting something new often triggers something like mourning. Give yourself space to mourn the old, but force yourself space to find extremely cool things in the new place. You’re closing one door and opening another. Hunt the cool! It’s easier to do this if you form lots of relationships early on.&lt;p&gt;4.) Everyone is shy.&lt;p&gt;5.) I got to know two types of cops’ kids:&lt;p&gt;- “The place I lived two moves ago was the best.”&lt;p&gt;- “Whatever town I live in now is the best.”&lt;p&gt;Guess who had an easier time making friends.&lt;p&gt;6.) DIY. Your new town might suck and the place you lived last move may have actually been the best town on earth. It got that way because people had ideas and did it themselves. You got the idea from someone else so 5% of the hard work is already done…:)&lt;p&gt;7.) Once you’ve been the new person, your most important task is to always help new people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spangry</author><text>This will sound counter-intuitive, but calling individuals to ask for small favours is a good way to build rapport and to learn more about your colleagues. Most people are very happy to help out the new guy, and asking a small favour is a good pretext for starting broader conversations about the topic they&amp;#x27;re an expert in or, even better, are passionate about.&lt;p&gt;For example: &amp;quot;Hey John, I&amp;#x27;m spangry and I just started this week in team foo. So and so tells me that you&amp;#x27;re the resident expert on x. I&amp;#x27;m planning to do some work related to x and figured, given I&amp;#x27;m new and all, I should talk to you before starting. Have you got a moment to talk about x?&amp;quot; Then ask your favour and they will likely oblige. After you&amp;#x27;ve thanked them, that&amp;#x27;s your opportunity to launch into a more general conversation where you show interest in their background or subject of interest (e.g. &amp;#x27;So how long have you been at [company] for? Got any tips for a new starter?&amp;#x27; or &amp;#x27;I did a little research on x before calling and read that y is a big issue at the moment. Just curious, what&amp;#x27;s your take on y issue?&amp;#x27;)&lt;p&gt;It goes without saying that being genuinely interested and curious about them helps greatly. I think the above works because (1) most people want to help, and they remember what it was like to be new (2) it&amp;#x27;s respectful, even flattering, that you&amp;#x27;re coming to them for their expertise and (3) broadening the conversation (but still keeping it on safe ground) generates additional conversation paths and further opportunities for building rapport.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, asking for small favours (which are obliged) may actually make people like you more as a post-hoc rationalisation for why they did you the favour (this is known as the Ben Franklin effect: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Ben_Franklin_effect&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Ben_Franklin_effect&lt;/a&gt;).</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: I&apos;m changing my job after a 15-year tenure. How should I proceed?</title><text>Hello HN, I&amp;#x27;ve been at my current company for the past 15 years. I&amp;#x27;ve taken on different roles where I started as a software engineer, before being promoted to lead, and then to staff engineer. I know my current company by heart. I know how to get things done. I know who to talk to and how to talk to the right people. I know the processes of my company in and out.&lt;p&gt;I decided to get out of my comfort zone. Try something new, I told myself on and on for the past 3 years. And I finally did it. I&amp;#x27;m changing jobs.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m going to a new company, where I&amp;#x27;ll be doing something slightly similar to my previous role, but in a totally new field. I don&amp;#x27;t know anyone there. The people seem extremely friendly and fun to work with. This is what I felt in the hiring process.&lt;p&gt;It feels like I forgot how I got good at this. Technically, I have no doubts to get things done. However, on the people level, I have no clue how to get started. How do I make &amp;quot;new friends&amp;quot; at work?&lt;p&gt;What do you usually do when you switch to a new company? How do you go from the &amp;quot;new clueless person at work&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;oh hey Mike, I&amp;#x27;ll need your help this afternoon&amp;quot;?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ativzzz</author><text>&amp;gt; focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people&lt;p&gt;Any tips for doing this in a remote company? Just be more active in random slack channels? Reach out to random individuals?</text></item><item><author>hluska</author><text>My Dad was a police officer and I moved around a lot as a kid, so I had more than a decade of experience being the new kid before I graduated high school. I figured out some things and still use them when I’m new in organizations.&lt;p&gt;1.) Learn names.&lt;p&gt;2.) Avoid tribes at first. It’s tempting to latch onto the first group that welcomes you, but try to avoid this. For at least the first few weeks, focus on developing superficial relationships with lots of people over deep relationships with few.&lt;p&gt;3.) Find the cool. Starting something new often triggers something like mourning. Give yourself space to mourn the old, but force yourself space to find extremely cool things in the new place. You’re closing one door and opening another. Hunt the cool! It’s easier to do this if you form lots of relationships early on.&lt;p&gt;4.) Everyone is shy.&lt;p&gt;5.) I got to know two types of cops’ kids:&lt;p&gt;- “The place I lived two moves ago was the best.”&lt;p&gt;- “Whatever town I live in now is the best.”&lt;p&gt;Guess who had an easier time making friends.&lt;p&gt;6.) DIY. Your new town might suck and the place you lived last move may have actually been the best town on earth. It got that way because people had ideas and did it themselves. You got the idea from someone else so 5% of the hard work is already done…:)&lt;p&gt;7.) Once you’ve been the new person, your most important task is to always help new people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wara23arish</author><text>I need help with this badly. I recently started at a remote company. I think do a better than average job at socializing and meeting people in person.&lt;p&gt;But definitely worse on slack, I overthink my messages that I type and end up not participating since I feel it can be misunderstood. I also feel that I dont want to be seen as a “time-waster”.&lt;p&gt;Fwiw, i also struggle with this with my american friends on discord, i just dont know how to navigate this sort of stuff and whats okay and not okay.</text></comment>