First Impressions!

First impressions last long we all know, but should they?

It was her first day on the job. She was awfully excited but had woken up so late she could not eat breakfast or pack her lunch. Well, truth be told, she had been exhausted playing with her 15 month old child the night before perhaps in a bid to quell the feelings of guilt she was trying not to feel.

She took a last lingering look in the fridge trying to see if perhaps a possible lunch idea would form from the Ketchup, Milk and Fruits she had in there. If only her grocery delivery had arrived yesterday as planned she sighed as she slammed the fridge door and donned her coat. She would source out something she thought as she said her goodbye to the childminder and kissed her little boy even as her stomach growled.

Hunger pangs still clawed at her inside 20minutes later when she walked into the new Company that would be her workplace from now. She was introduced to her team. They all slapped on bright smiles but she noticed the smiles did not quite reach their eyes.

Her induction took a full hour but then she got a good tour of the building. So good in fact that she made her way back to the canteen a short while later to see if she could grab a bite. Glad that there was a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich she hurriedly claimed it but, alas, scouting through her handbag revealed she had only had a few pennies. Realising she brought the wrong bag, she quietly walked away from the canteen with tears stinging her eyes.

Back in their open-plan office, she decided to focus on her work for the day. Just at that time, one of the ladies in her team (Lucy) came over and said ' uhm skiving already?' She had no quick retort that could match that so she gave a quarter of a smile.

The next few hours went by quickly and it was soon lunch time. She decided to check on the childminder and was speaking to her on her cell phone when her team all stood up to go for lunch. Lucy gave her a quizzical look that asked, 'aren't you coming?' to which she shook her head.

Lucy smirked back at her, passing a crystal clear message to her, 'she had just crossed a line' but short of humiliating herself and asking them to loan her a fiver, there was no way she could go and have lunch with them. Besides she never had lunch buddies at work, she preferred to sit alone and enjoy a quiet lunch thereby avoiding the gossip that characterised team lunches.

An hour later, when her team returned, they each asked her if she had worked through lunch. When she responded affirmatively, they chorused 'uuhhh' and Lucy gave her daggers. Evidently, she just stepped further away from the accepted and liked line.

2 years into this job, her team would now like and value her contribution but not before telling her how much they loathed her on that first day and how they had decided to 'show' her during that lunch she opted out of; their first impression of her being that she was a 'skiving, snobbish, working through lunch type' when in fact she was just a 'hungry, cashless, trying to get through the day type'.

So I ask again, should first impressions last long? Or should we simply try to get an accurate first impression?

* To 'skive' is British slang for the practice of avoiding responsibilities (particularly work or school) because you want to do something more fun or just don’t want to do what you should be doing.