-Karthik Gurumurthy
Few moments in working life are more vulnerable than the first days in a new place. Everything is unfamiliar: the building, the systems, the unwritten rules everyone else seems to understand. Every name is a puzzle, every acronym a mystery, and every question feels like an imposition. Newcomers often carry a quiet worry that they’ll look foolish, bother busy people, or fail to prove they deserved to be hired.
Most of us have felt this at some point. We remember eating lunch alone on the first day, searching for the right meeting room, or nodding along in a conversation we didn’t fully understand. We remember, too, the person who made it easier: the colleague who said, “Come sit with us,” or, “Ask me anything, there’s no such thing as a silly question.” Years later, we may have forgotten much about those early weeks, but we rarely forget who welcomed us.
Offering to be a newcomer’s guide, the person they can turn to without hesitation, echoes one of humanity’s oldest virtues: hospitality.
Across cultures and centuries, welcoming the stranger has been treated as something sacred. The ancient Indian teaching “Atithi Devo Bhava,” from the Taittiriya Upanishad, asks us to treat the guest as God. In ancient Greece, the custom of xenia made kindness to travelers a moral duty, protected by the gods themselves. Many religious and cultural traditions share the same instinct: how we receive the outsider is a test of our character.
At work, hospitality takes humbler forms. It means remembering what it felt like to be new and sharing the small things no manual explains: who to ask about what, where things are kept, how decisions actually get made. It means introducing people by name, checking in after the first week, and making it clear that questions are welcome. These gestures cost little, yet they can turn a frightening first month into a hopeful one.
The effects reach further than we might think. People who feel welcomed early tend to settle in faster, contribute sooner, and speak up more freely. They also remember how they were treated, and many go on to welcome others the same way. Hospitality, like gratitude, tends to be passed along. A single kind guide can shape the culture of a team for years.
There’s also something quietly revealing in how we treat those who are new among us. Newcomers can’t yet do much for us. They have no influence, no shared history, and no favors to return. Kindness offered to them comes with nothing expected in return, which is why it says so much about who we are.
In the end, every one of us was once the new person, unsure and hoping someone would notice. Welcoming the stranger is a way of honoring that memory and offering others what we once needed ourselves: the simple, steadying feeling that we belong.
Leave a Reply