First Impressions

When was the last time you used Internet Explorer? Sure it crashed and burned and froze your computer and caused you pain that left you a sad lonely miserable cynic with trust issues. In the meantime, Microsoft fixed its browser, crashing is no longer frequent and from what I hear, the interface looks really cool. But the impression that has been formed of IE in my head is fixed now and unless this was a post-apocalyptic world where Chrome and Firefox no longer exist, I would not dream of clicking the little blue icon of disaster.

What I am trying to say is first impressions matter. And that does not mean the first time you meet a person – the initial phase of them getting to know you will stick in their mind. So if you managed to show up late to your job for the first week (it's been year since you went to school, of course you were a little late), your boss already thinks of you as unreliable and it will take a lot of convincing to get them to change that.

Impressions stick like cheap éclairs to your gums. So words of the wise – do not do something that will come back to haunt you. You exude confidence when you walk, and in a bid to impress your future bosses and colleagues, you come off as arrogant. No matter how good you are at your job, it is beyond a doubt that everyone now thinks of you as full of hot air. The way you interact with your colleagues will determine how they treat you throughout – if you come off as annoying or arrogant, those peer evaluations will not be flattering.

All this can go the other way too. First month of your job and you practically bury your social life to impress your superiors. You stay in late, finish the work even before it is assigned to you, if this was the Olympics, you would be Usain Bolt. And then after a month, you realise everyone else is getting away by doing a lot less. Your pace slows down. But your boss now thinks you are slacking off – if you could do it then, why can't you now? In the meantime that colleague that you absolutely loathe is away vacationing in the Bahamas.

And needless to say, if you work in the corporate world, what you wear matters. You might not have to wear suits every day, but it is never ever ok to show up at work wearing a neon green shirt and crocs. Even outside the corporate world, it is important to know what clothing is acceptable and what is not. It might be perfectly alright in a startup to walk in wearing shorts and a t-shirt. So if on the first day you walk in looking like someone straight out of Mad Men, you might just me labelled as the square.

It is a shallow world, and you will be judged by everything that you do. First impressions are the basis on which people will form an opinion of you. Stay on the safe side and don't be a douche or a pushover at the start. And remember, opinions and impressions, no matter how strong they are, can be changed. Just that the effort of doing so will leave you regretting every single mistake that you ever made.