BE 373: English for First Day Jitters
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This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 373, English for First Day Jitters.

Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.

Thank you.

One of my favorites was the episode that Lindsay did with Harvard professor Todd Rogers on how to write well for a busy world, or the interview I did with linguist Valerie Friedland on three benefits of using the word like. You'll miss this and others if you're not following. Open the search bar now, type in All Ears English, and hit follow. See you there.

Hi, Lindsay, how are you? Hey, Michelle, I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good. Lindsay, do you feel more excited or nervous when you're on the first day of something?

To be honest, probably more nervous. But it's been a long time since I've had a first day of anything, to be honest. Well, it's not good to say. It's been a while since I've had a work first day. That's for sure. But it is good to have first days for different things, starting new things, trying new things.

Um, that's huge, right? Maybe that's my new year's resolution this year. Have more first day, have more first days, not just not for work, but just for life, you know, new projects, new hobbies. Yeah. Love it. What are we getting into philosophy? What are we getting into today? Well, today we are going to, uh, answer a listener question about first days. So we'll read the question in just a minute. Um,

and lindsay but before we do that we want to say thank you so much to our listeners who have reviewed us yeah guys we love your reviews right here on the business english podcast so special shout out to kelly from hk alberto moss and chris one two three four five six seven eight nine and chris left us a five star review and i'm gonna read it michelle are you ready yes hi

Hi guys, this is Chris from China. Thanks for doing this amazing podcast. It's really interesting and informative. I just got a new job, which is about Amazon e-commerce analytics. And this is also my first office job. I've learned a lot from Business English here. Thanks a lot. Best wishes to you and all ears English. I love that, Michelle.

Yeah. Chris sounds like a smart guy. What a big job. Oh, for sure. So guys, if you love this show, Business English, please let us know. Let us know what you think of the podcast. Go ahead and leave your review for Business English today. Do it right now today. And the next time we record, next time we see your review, we'll go ahead and read your name on the show.

All right. Love it. All right. Thank you guys so, so much. Yes. Michelle, we have a question here. Should I read the listener question? Sure. This is from YouTube. And this is from our listener, Mahfoud. Okay. Mahfoud Aldari 4545. Here we go. My name is Mahfoud.

hi allers english team i love the podcast so much i've been a listener since nine months ago and i really enjoy every conversation you helped me with my english since i graduated from university i'm so happy that i just landed a job as an engineer retail fantastic i'm super excited about it could you help me with some slang on my first day or special vocabulary that they may um that may help me to introduce myself to the store manager or my co-workers

And how can I build strong relationships with them? Thank you so much. Oh, Michelle, exciting. Congratulations on your new job. And the way Mahfoud, this is a really good way that he phrased it. I just landed a job. That is some bonus vocabulary for today. Good bonus vocabulary rather than just, I just got a job. So this is a little bit, sounds a little bit, I don't know.

It's good. Sounds high level. Yeah. Sounds high level. Exactly. Yeah. And I would also say to Mahfud, I like that Mahfud is already thinking in the right direction because he asked, how can I build strong relationships with my coworkers? You know, that's the right thinking for a first day at work. Eventually you're going to learn all the skills. You're going to be competent. You're going to figure it out. But building those relationships is the one thing you can't have. You can't repeat the first day.

Right. So I think having a special focus on who you're meeting, who's around you is going to pay dividends in the end. Right. And I like this idea of focusing on those strong relationships because this is what you're thinking into the future. So, right. You have to start to plant the seeds in the beginning. Um, so it's, it's good to have your kind of have your eye on the prize, have your goal of having these strong relationships. So that's great. Um, so we've talking to

We've spoken a bit about first days before, but we want to take a crack at it for this listener because you can never talk about first days enough because it is such a huge chance for connection, right? It's true. We literally could do a whole course on your first day at work. That would be a great idea. I would think so.

We could do a whole course on it for sure. But for today, we'll settle for this. So again, Michelle's saying we have covered this topic similarly, but you're going to learn something new every time we cover this topic. All right. So guidelines, Michelle, what are some things we need to know for our first day? Yeah.

Yeah, so some of it is not just the words you're using, but how you're feeling, what's going on in the background. So to me, the first one is don't put too much pressure on yourself on that first day, right? If you feel you didn't connect with someone immediately, don't get discouraged. Don't give up on that person, right? Because relationships take time to develop both in and outside of the work

place and not everything needs to happen at once. Right. So, I mean, I noticed this even in my personal life, you know, I'll meet somebody and you don't know that person could be someone you'd ever talk to again. It could also be your best friend. That's so weird to think about that, isn't it? Yes, it definitely is. I mean, and how relationships take place.

really a lot of time to see how they're going to pan out. So if somebody just kind of passes you by, you don't know, maybe they don't feel well, maybe they, you don't know what it is. So just don't put too much pressure on you. If it doesn't work out with somebody that you're trying to talk to, you don't have to totally just never try again. I mean, we can talk about that in the future. When, when do you know it's time to kind of give up on somebody?

No, it's true. I mean, and a lot of people, it just takes time to earn their respect. A lot of people are pleasant at first, but they don't fully

engage with you or connect with you until you've earned their respect. And that is just their style. You know, I have friends who have worked in the corporate environment and maybe there's have been people that maybe were intimidating to them at first on their team. And maybe they were, there was even some animosity, but it's just that that person had a higher guard up and maybe didn't trust them yet. But at some point,

the respect was earned and the relationship was built and now they're kind of a mentor for these people, right? So not everyone is just gonna love you right away and that's fine, that's just human nature.

But being positive, planting the seed, letting them know that you're open to connecting when they're ready is really great, is the way to do it. Right. And you know what? The other tip is show it in your language, but also consider your body language. Focus on what to say, but also how to say it and how you present yourself. So look proud. Look proud to be there. Make eye contact. Smile. Just give a welcoming...

appearance um and show show that you're someone who is warm yeah sometimes even if you're feeling intimidated maybe scared and you want to curl up physically sometimes we have to fake it till we make it as we say right oh yeah uh put those shoulders back put a smile on your face

That will immediately change your brain chemistry. It'll change the way people react to you, which is huge, right? Definitely. Yeah. And what's the third thing to remember? Well, I like this suggestion. Ask about others. So this kind of actually gets to our philosophy of connection, not perfection. It's impossible to connect if we're so

caved in on ourselves and worried about a mistake or feeling awkward or not knowing what we're doing. Instead, we ask people about themselves. So don't make it about you. Don't be a me monster. We use the term me monster. Sometimes people can be me monsters if they're just nervous and they kind of don't know how to stop talking. That's another way anxiety can go in that direction too. Yes, yes, exactly. So don't be a me monster like we've talked about before. Yeah.

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So what is it, Michelle? What's the suggestion? Well, we're going to talk about some specific expressions you can use. So you can say jump right in. So this shows eagerness. So you could say it to a coworker. You could say, I'm so excited to jump right in and get to know everyone. Yes, I love this. This can also be used in different scenarios where a similar feeling where you're feeling awkward and

Like if you're in, I was recently in kind of a group chat where I hadn't engaged in a while, but I was going to ask a question in the group and I had to say something to say, I haven't been involved, but I have a question. Right. And so I use that term again. I said, I've been away from the chat for a while, but I'm jumping back in. Hmm.

And here's my question. So there's some awkwardness there. And it's a similar feeling of a first day. Do I belong here? I'm not sure if I do. Right. So I like this phrase, jump right in, because it's a good level of casual casualness, but it's also...

I don't know. It's not rude. It's polite. It's humble. It's a good one. Yeah. Good. And then we have newbie. So this is the way you can describe yourself, right? You could say, I'm a newbie. How long have you been working here? Right. And that's a...

a very typical thing that you could talk about in the beginning with someone so when we talk about what can you what can you say you can ask someone about themselves how long have you been working here um you know what um you can even ask them things like where's the best place to go for lunch around here right it can be casual things like that it doesn't need to be so much pressure on yourself about the job necessarily focus on getting to know the person

No, that's a really good point. You know, if you don't want to ask about the job or how to do certain things in the office, ask about the neighborhood around the office. Maybe you work in midtown Manhattan and where's the right food cart for lunch? You know, where was the best restaurant? Yeah, exactly. The next one, show me the ropes. I like it too. I'm sure you will. You will all be able to show me the ropes.

So I'm sure you will show me the ropes. And that's just, again, indicating that it's humility, that you're new. You need to be taught how to do something. You know, there are certain things that happen here that you're unaware of, right? Kind of showing deference to the people who have been there already. Yes.

Yeah, a little bit of humility. And just, you know, so we talked about this, you know, what do you talk about to build those relationships? Like, like Lindsay said, and what I was saying is, consider the person. Don't make everything about work.

Definitely. You know, try and get to know them. And I think that that's going to take you farther than if you're just, if you just seem like, oh, I'm just interested in business. Of course, you don't want to get too personal. But, you know, just being interested, like be curious about the people who you work with. And these things will happen with time. Well,

Well, especially around the world. I mean, we are a pretty work forward culture, American culture, I think. And I already agree with you, Michelle, don't talk about the work. But there are other cultures around the world where it's crucial to build the relationship before talking about work at all, right? Yeah. Much more relationship-based cultures. I wouldn't necessarily describe the US as a relationship. Some people personally are, but I think broadly as a culture, our work culture is more task-based.

So just be aware of where you're working and but even in a task based culture like American business culture, you still can go ahead and ask about the restaurant about the how do you get to work the personal writing to personal about your colleagues, but like just life bring life in a little bit. Right, right.

I think considering the neighborhood where you're working and things like food and yeah, I think that's the weather. It's good. Yeah, exactly. It's a safe topic. So that's a good share, a safe shared topic. We're both experiencing it and it's impersonal. It's not going to everybody like food. Yeah, for sure. Everybody eats at some point. Yeah. Let's show our listeners how we might do this on a first day. So here you are on your first day at a new job and you're going to meet me in the lunchroom. Okay, here we go.

Hi, I'm Michelle. I'm the newbie here. Wow. I'm Lindsay. Welcome. Nice to meet you, Lindsay. How's your first day going? Oh, good. Thanks. I'm just ready to jump right in. Yeah. First days are weird because all the paperwork. I'm here to help.

Thanks. Can't wait for you to show me the ropes. How long have you been working here? For about six years. Wow. What's it like here? Nice. Nice. All right. Good stuff. So we use newbie. So you opened with, hi, I'm Michelle. I'm the newbie here. And I like that. Again, shows that humility. It's maybe a little bit like,

a little silly right yeah yeah yeah right exactly exactly it is a little silly yes um and then i said i'm just ready to jump right in mm-hmm perfect and then you said thanks can't wait for you to show me the ropes right so you're showing eagerness which is really positivity and eagerness excitement to be there good vibes overall that's kind of your job on day one

Show a sense of being ready to learn being interested being eager and getting to know people and then you'll learn things as you go along Yes, exactly And this reminds me we did. Oh here it is. I found it. Okay, so We recently did an episode. Um, I'm gonna actually okay 367 was how to get advice from a senior colleague in English So that's one

Yeah, because we're touching on that a little bit here, but definitely listen to that to go deeper. Yeah, absolutely related to this. Check out that episode right when you finish today. Don't forget to hit the follow button. And of course, Michelle, what's our takeaway?

Well, good luck to my food. Congratulations. And yeah, just think about the people you're working with. And I think the biggest thing is to not put too much pressure on yourself, right? If you're always thinking, of course, we want to be prepared for the first day, but the first day, it's one day. So you want to make a good impression. But if you're thinking of it as, oh,

oh my gosh, the first day, the first day, it's hard not to think that way, right? It's totally normal to feel nervous about the first day. But just realize you have time and just show kindness and

have welcoming body language and you're, you know, and ask others about themselves. That's what I would say. 100%, Michelle. I love that. Just remember that you have time. I think that's the most important piece. You will have time to go and show your competence, to add value to the organization, to learn all those things and to complete the paperwork.

But you can't go back and have another first day when it comes to interactions, like that first interaction with that person, that person, that person. Those really matter. So slow down and take the time to make the eye contact.

Be positive, be light, be human, right? Yes, exactly. That's it. I love that. That is the formula for a successful first day. Yes. All right. Well, good luck on your first day and let us know how it goes. All right. Take care, Michelle. Have a good day. All right. Bye. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye.

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