It was the middle of the dot-com madness in Manhattan, when Internet companies were multiplying like rabbits and every twenty-something with a laptop, a clever idea, and a foosball table thought they were six months away from an IPO.
I was fortunate enough to work for a foundational company who stood the test of time—an Internet advertising rocket ship with a classic work-hard, play-hard culture. Long days. Late nights. The relentless pursuit of excellence fueled by ambition, adrenaline, and the belief that the world was truly changing.
And did I say play hard? Happy hours weren’t always an hour. Company parties were legendary. And the offsites were the stuff of lore.
It was exhausting. It was ridiculous. It was glorious.
Ahead of one particularly epic company party, someone had what seemed like a terrific idea. We had a new employee joining the company the following week. Why not invite him? Let him meet everyone in a relaxed environment. Get to know his future coworkers. Give him a taste of the culture.
We didn’t know him well yet, so we simply called him “New Guy”.
New Guy showed up. And New Guy embraced the culture.
Perhaps a little too enthusiastically.
Because even during the anything-goes dot-com era, there were still a few basic rules of professional etiquette. And somewhere near the top of that very short list was this:
Don’t get blackout drunk and pass out in the middle of a company event before you’ve even officially started working there.
Apparently, New Guy never got the memo.
I don’t remember exactly how the evening ended for him. But it wasn’t pretty.
New Guy became a cautionary tale.
For years afterward, when a new employee joined the company or someone got a little too enthusiastic at happy hour, the warning was simple:
“Have fun. Just don’t be New Guy.”
And couldn’t we all learn from New Guy in our work and personal lives?
The People Who Teach Us What Not to Do
We spend a lot of time looking for mentors—people whose careers, relationships, habits, and lives we want to emulate. That’s smart. Find successful people and study what they do.
But some of our greatest teachers are the people who show us exactly what not to do.
There’s the executive who was brilliant but treated people terribly. Talented employees would slowly leave, teaching us that leadership isn’t just about getting results. It’s about how you get them.
There’s the manager who refused to listen because he was convinced he had all the answers. Eventually, the market proved otherwise, teaching us that confidence is valuable, but curiosity may be more valuable.
There are missed deadlines that teach better planning. Bad hires that improve the next interview process. Lost clients that expose gaps in communication. Failed products that reveal what customers actually want.
Somebody paid their dues for those lessons. And we need to go to school on that experience!
Life Has New Guys, Too
The same thing happens outside of work.
Maybe we’ve stayed in a relationship too long because we kept hoping the other person would become who we wanted them to be. The relationship may have ended painfully, but we carried something valuable into the next one.
Maybe we made a terrible financial decision in our twenties. Bought something we couldn’t afford. Ran up a credit card. Chased an investment we didn’t understand. Painful lessons. But those mistakes might be the reason we’re a little more disciplined with money twenty years later.
Maybe we ignored our health until our body finally forced us to pay attention. Maybe we took a friendship for granted. Maybe we missed an opportunity because we were afraid to take the risk. And hopefully, at some point, we watched someone else do all of those things and were smart enough to take notes.
That’s the beauty of a cautionary tale. Sometimes we are the “new guy”. But we don’t always have to be the person who makes the mistake to benefit from the lesson.
Resilience Is About Paying Attention
We tend to think of resilience as our ability to survive difficult things. Get knocked down. Get back up. Keep going. That’s certainly part of it.
But resilience is also the ability to learn and to listen—to absorb the lessons hiding inside our own mistakes AND the mistakes of people around us.
I have no idea where New Guy is today. For all I know, he’s a wildly successful CEO who hasn’t touched a drink at a company party in 25 years. I hope so.
But wherever he is, he taught us all a lesson before his first official day on the job.
Resilience isn’t just about recovering from our own mistakes. Sometimes we need other people to teach us a lesson before we have to learn it for ourselves.