New job. Need tips and tricks.

Post Reply New Topic

Hey. So I started at this new job a few months ago and thought I'd ask you guys for some advice at how to approach people and develop, I don't know, some sort of friendly amity. And I also want to point out that I do have an Asperger diagnosis.

This place is pretty big and consists of several companies of different fields, not everyone knows each other necessarily but I notice that many usually do chit chat from time to time at, lets say breakfast or lunch as we all share the dining room together. I know pretty much everyone at the company I work for, we have talked with each other and sometimes eat lunch together as well, but people from other companies I'm not very familiar with. But I do notice that they talk with my fellow co-workers sometimes.

Now, just a week ago when I was having lunch alone in the dining room, a person came up to me right out of the blue and started up a conversation, it was unexpected, it doesn't happen often for me at a workplace, we exchanged stories at what we are doing at our respective companies, our school backgrounds etc. etc. And I actually remember speaking briefly to this person a month back. My question is, next time we see each other, what should I be saying or asking in order to maintain friendly amity at the workplace between us, because next time I see people after I've had a long-ish conversation with them before, I don't even really know what to say, and we will have some sort of awkward nod and a smile or "hi" every once in a while passing. Or maybe I'll say "oh, how are you doing?" and they'll reply "great", and that's it. I have a really hard time reading the situation and how I should develop this sort of "friendship" further. I have a really hard time reading our acquaintance level, like how well do I know this person, I mean we're not best friends, but we're certainly not complete strangers that just bumped into each other on the street.

Or if like lets say, 2 people are chit chatting at lunch, should I just get in between them to get to know the person, because I feel like I'm interrupting or something like that. So I need some sort of tips and tricks with how to behave at the workplace atm.

I think the passing by nod and smile or "hi how's it going?" is fine.

I'm not sure myself about the two people already chatting at lunch. For all my ancient years of life, I'm sorry to say I STILL don't know how to proceed there. I will be interested to see the suggestions myself.

If there was anything in your talk that they worried about, ask them how that's going. If there's something that made them laugh, the first time you see them afterwards, you may be able to relate a news story to that or something. It's hard to figure out how long something will stay funny sometimes, so just go with the first time. If they expressed a special interest in something, ask them if they've read or heard about some book, newspaper article, or news story related to that special interest. If you're about to grab lunch out of the office, you may want to ask them to come with you.



Sometimes a simple nod is a fine full level of interaction.



Don't get between the two, but this is one of those occasions where that nod and quick hey ____, how's it going? would be a perfectly fine full level of interaction. If _______ wants to invite you to sit down or pull you into the conversation and you have the time, let them. Listen the the conversation for a moment before joining in. If you're a guy and they want to wait for you to talk, bring up a local sports team you're all likely to follow. If you're a girl at a table of girls, compliment their nails, or shoes, or hair, or sweater. Your goal at a table of two is to get to know that first person better, and to get to know the second person as well as you knew the first person before this second conversation.

Since most of this was probably of the blind leading the blind:
One of my biggest tricks to make friends in the workplace is to bring in some cookies I made. If you can't cook, cookies can be donuts. Doing this helps people believe I'm more shy and maybe awkward than anti-social. My dad taght me that one, because it always worked well for him.