At The Office

I should have seen it coming. I could have avoided it. But I didn't.

Instead, I walked right into it like a lamb.

I invited my new colleague JK to lunch with me today. Being an experienced hire, he had been asking me a lot of questions regarding the company's stability, working atmosphere, etc, etc. Before answering him directly, I asked him what would compel him to leave his previous job in the first place. What he wanted and what the company could offer seemed to match and he was satisfied with the fair answer I gave. So that went well.

That is, until lunch time came. I spotted two fellow colleagues lunching at the same place and thought it would be good to join them so that JK could know them better. Big mistake. I had completely forgotten how jaded and disillusioned one of them was.

The minute we started eating and talking about nice topics like holidays, the jaded one (JO) said, "Nah, no holidays for me this year. I want to save my leave just in case I resign."

My smile froze on my face as I nodded and quickly changed the subject. I was shocked that he could say such a thing to a new colleague. I also started eating faster so as to cut the lunch short. It did not matter what topic we talked about, JO would turn them into complaint sessions about several other company things and policies that he found to be ridiculous. On and on it went until I didn't know how quite to look JK. I didn't want to see the horrified look that I'm sure he must be sporting.

Despite the horrible lunch hour we shared, my conscience was clear in that:

• I did not lie to JK about the things that he needed to know about the company.


• I presented the facts fairly and squarely to him and did not paint a glowing rosy and untrue picture of the firm

My mistake was in bringing a new hire to join JO who sees things through sunglasses during JK's first lunch with his new colleagues.

Gah.

Oh no... what have I done??