Flair

[aquaphase]

A couple of months ago I started working at a new company that has an interesting "ritual" for new employees: flair. For those of you UK peeps that may not be in the know this is flair.

The office provides a mess of blank "photo frame" 2 inch buttons that each employee gets to customize in some way for the new employee. The new employee is supposed to go around and collect the flair from each "old" employee and find out what they do and what the flair means. It's a pretty interesting exercise.

Anyone else out there have a "fun" way of getting new employees oriented.

BTW, here is my pile of flair

[Phyllis]

i wear flare at my job too! i like the prince one.

[roach]

that's a cool idea, and you get a dusty buttons.

you work at fridays, Phyllis? ooorrrrrrr Phyllis, pasties don't count as flair!

ro"sorry for the sexual harassment up there"ach

[Phyllis]

oh nvm i thought for sure pasties would count

[aquaphase]

oh nvm i thought for sure pasties would count

They only count if you are using them correctly

[Irock]

Ok, but tassels count, right? Tassles better fucking count, or I'm going to the Texas Workforce Commision.

We never get new employees, really. Any time we have an opening, there are more than enough people who already work for the company who need a job. Sometimes we hire contractors, but the orientation for them is something along the lines of, "here's your user ID and password. And a badge."

I like the flair idea, I think you should give new people leftover Forkers pins. But make up a different story to go with them, because I don't need all your coworkers cluttering the place up.

[katie]

that's pretty damn cool. it's cute without being annoying and it actually forces you to interact with people in the office. jen's the only person at work i talk to now that sully and bo aren't there anymore. GODDAMMIT, BRING ME FLAIR, JEN!

[ifihadahifi]

New people suck.

[James]

I bet you're loving the anti-Chelsea badge...

[aquaphase]

I bet you're loving the anti-Chelsea badge...

That's from one of my Tottenham-lovin' senior partners. We pick on each other all friendly like a lot.

[katie]

woah, is that a pin of dusty?

[monet2u]

we've got a hiring freeze well except for contractors...which most are not from the US so I think they wouldn't get flair and anyway I like to just sit at my desk and not be bothered with my coworkers anyway. so I don't really want them coming round chatting to me so yeah this is a long way of saying...nope we don't do anything. oh they do introduce new people at staff meetings. I promptly forget them tho, since they don't work or sit on my floor.

[eebs]

I thought flair was something from office space not something that was like real.

If we have any new employees it's normally lunch, cake or pub. Our lot are a cake team.

[James]

At our work they used to send around emails from new starters written by them to everyone which included your work MSN account. Then The new starter gets overwhelmed with about 1000 requests for addition. It happens a few times as all the worldwide offices add people.

Our team is a lunch with beer team. We also have a yearly meeting in one of our office locations. Pulling for Sydney this year....

Still, we had an office party on Friday and I still have no idea who half of these people are. They looked equally as confused by my presence.

I like the flair idea. My previous job had meetings with people which was cool but I particularly like the idea of having my own flair made up to give to someone. Maybe I should just load up on Forkers badges...

[aquaphase]

woah, is that a pin of dusty?

Yup. Nathan Vaughn made that one. We spent about three days trying to figure out how we knew each other.