The new kid at the office
It's Week One at Slate!
Programming note: as I mentioned last week, the entire archives of Death, Sex & Money are now available in your podcast feed. Go explore! And leave a review in Apple Podcasts to tell us and your fellow listeners which episodes have stuck with you the most. We are reading these as they come in and they’re helping us think about “Best of Death, Sex & Money” episodes to highlight in our new home at Slate.
This week I had my first first day of work since 2009! Death, Sex & Money has officially moved to Slate and Monday was my first day on the job. As you may know, before this, I was long a company woman at WNYC, and while I had my share of new job titles and “qualifying events” over those years to change things up, I had the same employee ID all along:
Back then, as I was starting, I mostly remember the hesitancy I felt, along with envy with everyone else’s familiarity with where to go when and how to do to their jobs. It was my birthday on that first day at WNYC, and I didn’t tell anyone. It felt a little presumptuous to be like, “Hello, Nice to meet you. Now, celebrate me!” But, still, kind of sad.
Zoe and Andrew from Team DSM have also made the move to Slate. They started their work week at the Slate office in Brooklyn, and I was encouraged by their reports about the snacks available in the company kitchen. Over here in Berkeley, for my first day, I put on an outfit and decided on just the right earrings. Then I unboxed a new laptop on my work desk. I’ve moved it to a different part of the house, so I have a new view:
It feels great, and everyone is incredibly kind and welcoming.
Still, starting a new job remotely is definitely weird. I have those same butterflies from 2009 of not being sure how much, shall we say, Sale Energy to bring into the first round of getting-to-know-you video meetings. I’m trying not to fill up too much space while I get to know people and processes.
But I have an exciting observation to share about middle age. Being the new kid at work—when you’re 43—doesn’t only feel awkward and anxiety-inducing; it’s also exhilarating! Particularly for my version of 43: a married mom of 2, whose months are dictated by school calendars and days are begun and ended by feeding the dogs. Starting up with a new company is a very welcome portal to a beginner’s mind, to help me shed what’s tired and no longer useful.
I’m excited by the new systems, new habits and potential new friends! And as I organize my new work life, I’m trying to take inspiration from my pal Kendra of The Lazy Genius podcast to “be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.” You may remember Kendra from this DSM episode in 2022. (She’s in the midst of her own big work transition as she and her team are joining up with the Office Ladies podcast network – the most delightful marriage of a homegrown North Carolina-based small business and a Hollywood legacy brand that I’ve heard about all year!)
At the end of my first week, there are some choices I’m mulling. I have a few questions for you. Tell me in comments if you have strong opinions about the following:
What is your favorite desk chair? I’m currently paralyzed between sticker shock and a need for a serious upgrade from the folding chair (ugh) I’m sitting in now. Help!
Zoom or Google Meet? If you have video meetings as part of your work life, which do you think should be my default and why?
What do you prioritize when you have in-person meetups with colleagues? If you regularly work in separate physical space from your regular collaborators and coworkers, how often do you schedule in-person time? And during this precious IRL time, do you think it’s better to work alongside each other or just unwind and socialize?
And finally… I have a request for new voice memo stories from you. I want to hear about the origins of your best work friendships.
One delight of joining a new workplace is the delight of finding that person who you can tell, usually right away, is going to be A GREAT FRIEND. Like when I first chatted with Catie Talarski in the kitchenette at Connecticut Public Radio. Or when I heard Noel King’s laugh from across the room in my early days of WNYC.
I want to hear tales of the first sparks of workplace friendship. What’d you first notice when you thought, “I bet that person and I are going to get each other.” A joke? A pair of shoes? A picture of their dogs behind their desk?
We have a new inbox for your stories: deathsexmoney@slate.com. Record a voice memo and tell us your first name, where you live, and the story of when when you and a precious work friend first connected. And email it to us at deathsexmoney@slate.com.
And if you want to keep geeking out on the particular intimacy of work friendships you might want to do what I’m doing and rewatch the whole series of Veep and this delightful documentary about the long – and fiery! – working relationship of writer Robert Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb.
Until next week,
Anna
A few Death, Sex & Money episodes this post made me recall fondly:
Anna Chlumsky Catches the Worm (2016) – the actor on playing Amy on Veep while having little kids and how a psychic inspired her to return to performing
When Work Changes, So Do We (2019) – your stories about work changes and identity, released after my return from my second maternity leave, and featuring the wonderful Uma Kondabolu
A Season to Savor (2021) - featuring Kendra from The Lazy Genius podcast, along with me waxing poetic about Reservation Dogs, Bluey, and my therapist
When Anna and Noel’s Hot Girl Summer Went Wrong (2021) – when Noel King interviewed me on the show
Jenny Slate and Dean Fleisher-Camp Talk About their Divorce, Anxiety, and Slowing Down (2022)– a lovely episode about a work collaboration that endured even after their romantic relationship ended
OK. These suggestions come from an Old Guy perspective who still works. 1. Good chair = very big deal. My son kindly bought me gaming chair (Secret Lab Titan) with accessories and it makes this sitting life fine indeed. Pricey and worth it. 2. Google Meet - big captions and ease of use - important for the hearing challenged. 3. Do lots of one-one-one chat sessions to get to know people (larger meets are less useful in that regard). Important to ask good questions (that is your specialty) and be yourself on camera. Old actor saying "The camera loves you or it doesn't" But in this virtual age - make the camera love you by being open and entirely human, not a Facebook perfect image of yourself. You got this. As someone starting out again at 78 after 14 years of current (soon ending) job, my heart is with you on being the new kid when you are not longer the kid. I look forward to more wonderful Anna sessions with incredibly interesting people.
1. Get a good chair - it's worth spending at least a few hundred dollars on, unfortunately. Your middle aged body will thank you.
2. Zoom > GoogleMeet or anything else! Zoom isn't perfect, but I find it more user friendly overall when it comes to sharing screens, seeing folks, etc. There's a super cool AI tool now that basically takes notes for you, too. Totally recommend so that you can free up someone else's head space in a meeting.
3. So most of my company is distributed throughout the country, but we're a small team. We have 3 in-person retreats a year, and they are TRULY retreats. The focus is on bonding not working. We all block off our calendars for the 2-3 days we're together, and while we do talk work and enjoy some presentations, we mostly bond through team dinners, fun activities, or just having free time to do whatever you want. And yes, we ultimately end up getting some work done while we're all together, but it's not expected and it's not the focus, and I find that to be critical in our work relationships. Our company founders started these years ago, and it truly speaks to our work's culture that we are all humans with real human lives, and unplugging and enjoying the time we get to spend together is more important than sending those emails.