I’ve been a bit inactive in The Hall recently because I’ve started a new job. At the start of August, I began working in a Silicon Valley school district. I’ve been spending long days learning new procedures, protocols, and acronyms; I’ve been spending eternally-seeming hours sitting in the car on the commute home. (Guy in Trader Joe’s: “Where did you get that tan?” Me: “From sticking my arm out the window on the drive home.”)
AND I’ve been meeting lots of new people. I would really, really, really like to shorten this establishment phase and just cut to whether I’m going to like/get along with you or not. Sure, there are indicators such as temperament, vocation, mood, interest inventories and personality scales. But music has typically served as the quickest and most reliable indicator of whether a colleague and I will be compatible.
But how can I subtly find out about my co-workers’ musical tastes? I don’t know them well enough to start nosing around their offices and looking for their music collections. I’m not going to start wearing my band t-shirts to work just yet (even if everyone rides their bikes to work around here). We haven’t started to have those lunchroom chats quite yet, and work happy hour get-togethers are probably a few weeks away.
Today, though, I was offered a first glimpse into one colleague’s musical psyche. He gave me a lift to the District Office, as my car was in the shop. His young children had been playing with his CDs and had left them scattered all over the front seat. As I sat down, I scooped them up and casually flipped through them. Here are a few of what I saw:
- The Beatles – Rubber Soul
- Michael Jackson – One
- The Darkness – Hot Cakes
- No Doubt – Icon
- The Clash – Singles Collection
- Tim Armstrong – A Poet’s Life
- Mad Caddies – Duck and Cover
What does this assortment of music tell you about my colleague? Do you think he and I will be able to work well together? Do you foresee issues, and if so, about what?
And lastly, How do you go about finding out about the musical tastes of your coworkers?
