An Interesting Fact For The First Day Of Work
A Buffalo named Danny was logging on to a Zoom call. It was his first day of work at his new company and he was very excited but also nervous about making a good first impression. Danny spent all of the previous night thinking about his answers to standard ice-breaker/new-employee questions he might encounter on his first day.
Danny thought about and prepared:
A short intro
An interesting fact about himself
Two truths and a lie
His favorite animal
His favorite movie
And he even considered what his superpower would be if he could pick one.
Danny had never been more prepared for a first day than he was for this first day. He couldn't wait to get started and he didn't want to screw up his first impression. He was determined not to look like a doofus in front of all his new colleagues.
"Okay, well we have a new face on the screen today!" The boss started. Danny felt every face in every square on the Zoom shift their focus towards his face and his square. "Danny will be our new associate moving forward. Danny, why don't you give us a short intro and an interesting fact about yourself?"
Okay, this was it. Short Intro. Interesting Fact. Preparation, meet opportunity. Danny launched into his answers with confidence:
"Hi Everyone, my name is Danny and I'm excited to meet and work with you all! I'm originally from the Great Plains and have spent 10 years working on both the customer-facing and business-facing sides of our industry. I love to collaborate and I'm looking forward to working with everyone!" Danny said, nailing his short intro just as he rehearsed it.
"And for my personal fact, um..." While Danny was practicing last night he thought it would be good to add the 'um' to his answer to make it seem more spontaneous, "Um, I've been to the Grand Canyon, twice!"
Danny breathed a sigh of relief. Interesting fact delivered. First impression made. He silently patted himself on the back.
You see, the worst thing you can do with an intro is over-think it. Everyone over-thinks the intro. They don’t want to have just an interesting fact. They want to have the most interesting fact. They want to win the game. But, that gets people into trouble. The desire to say the most interesting fact often leads one to say something outrageous and now everyone remembers you but in a bad way.
Danny knew he nailed it. He nailed the awkward ice-breaker as plainly and painlessly as possible. All that was left was for Danny to smile in his box while everyone reacted indifferently to his interesting fact and then moved on with the day.
But, oddly, no one reacted to his interesting fact at all. Everyone just stared back at him blankly. Was his fact not-not-interesting, enough? I mean, Danny knew it wasn't a super interesting fact but it should have been sufficient for the intro. The blank expressions were starting to worry him. Now he just didn't want to seem totally lame to his new co-workers.
"Sorry, you were cutting out a little bit there, Danny." Danny's boss said finally, "What was your interesting fact again?"
Danny was crushed. This was his nightmare. Is going to the Grand Canyon twice even interesting anymore? Oh gosh. But it's too late to think of another fact...
"Oh, sorry about that, um... my fun fact is, that I've been to the Grand Canyon, twice.” Danny said but with much less enthusiasm and confidence this time.
He knew it wasn’t ideal but he hoped to just move the focus off of himself as quickly as possible. No one needed to be staring at this new face in the new box in such a vulnerable place on the first day. That stuff imprints on your colleagues forever. The time between Danny saying his fact again and his colleagues acknowledging it indifferently felt like an eternity to Danny. He waited for someone to say something or half-smile or react in any way...
But still, no such thing happened. No response. Danny’s boss spoke up again:
"Sorry Danny, you keep cutting out, do you mind repeating your interesting fact one more time?"
Danny gulped. He felt sweat on his forehead. "Oh no, please no, not again" he thought. If only he had gone to the Grand Canyon three times, now that would be a fact worth mentioning.
