What Is An Appropriate Response?

[Anonymous]

New hire is very gung ho, but in a brown nosed fashion. I don't get the feeling his late night emails come from anything other than wanting to look like a 'harder' worker than others.

They routinely send emails, of no real emergency, at 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night and then ambush me, usually in front of our manager, immediately upon entering the office with something like:

"Bill, I sent you a couple emails last night but haven't heard back yet. What are you thinking about the Batemen project deadline change?"

He's done this three times in the last two week. Two of the times I literally still had my work bag and lunch bag in my hands. I hadn't even made it to my desk yet. It's like he's waiting.

[Anonymous]

Good morning brown noser. Let me get settled and I’ll come find you when I’m free to check in. I did get your emails but they aren’t emergencies, so we have time to figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good morning brown noser. Let me get settled and I’ll come find you when I’m free to check in. I did get your emails but they aren’t emergencies, so we have time to figure it out.

Exactly. I would have no issues calling him out on it and saying "yes, I got your email at 10 pm but didn't see the need to do anything about it until I came back to the office this morning."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good morning brown noser. Let me get settled and I’ll come find you when I’m free to check in. I did get your emails but they aren’t emergencies, so we have time to figure it out.

Perfect response. Also works for the people who press send and then immediately run down the hall to discuss.

[Anonymous]

I cannot stand it when people jump on you with work stuff before I get settled in. I oy need 2 minutes but they don’t care. I’m not really listening either at that point.

[Anonymous]

You all are snarky.
Does anyone want to help coach the kid?
At next 1:1, “Let me help you learn the ropes here, and what actually wins points and what doesn’t.”

List the success factors: Quality work, done on time and correctly, Willingness to learn ask questions and own mistakes, Building solid authentic relationships with others, Learning the social cues at work, when and how to approach others.

List the things that don’t win points and could be detrimental… Hyper productivity, inability to discern urgent vs non urgent matters, etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all are snarky.
Does anyone want to help coach the kid?
At next 1:1, “Let me help you learn the ropes here, and what actually wins points and what doesn’t.”

List the success factors: Quality work, done on time and correctly, Willingness to learn ask questions and own mistakes, Building solid authentic relationships with others, Learning the social cues at work, when and how to approach others.

List the things that don’t win points and could be detrimental… Hyper productivity, inability to discern urgent vs non urgent matters, etc

I don't think there's an inoffensive way to do this as a peer (not boss). But, it might help to go out to lunch and build a rapport.