The Cold Shoulder Isn't How You Welcome New People

You're new. First day on the job. First time at practice with the team. First meeting at the organization. First time doing a boss fight with other players.

You introduce yourself, tell the others that you're the New Guy. Do they tell you what you need to know, things outside the manual? No. Do they look askance at you when, inevitably, you fuck up and cost the team valuable time (and, in many contexts, money)? Especially in a competitive race against other teams or organizations? Yes, they do, but unless the loss is big enough they still refuse to tell you a goddamn thing- they just get exasperated with you being a fuckup that's a millstone around their neck.

Now add this to the situation: said co-workers, teammates, comrades, co-players proclaim how they love new players and welcome them with enthusiam.

The reasonable response is to call out this dissonance, to state that it is unreasonable to expect new people to know what to do or how to do it without instruction from the veterans that already know all of that. The unreasonable expectation is to insist that new people suffer through going about it blind because it is unworthy of the veterans' time to properly instruct new people on proper procedure, despite the simultaneous griping by said veterans about the new guys constantly fucking things up.

While I'm running into this fucking retarded attitude most recently in Final Fantasy XIV, when I cited workplaces and sports team and organizations I speak from personal experience going back over 30 years- mine and that of others I've seen, heard, and witnessed. While some instances can be put to Baby Boomers being their usual retarded selves about passing on the patrimony they received, hoarding it all for themselves and saying "Fuck You, Got Mine" to their successors, it is far more often that this behavior is in fact a form of gatekeeping.

Any reasonable person would interpret this dissonance for what it is: ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT, followed by GET THE FUCK OUT.

This is the Cold Shoulder. Freezing out unwanted people, giving them only the absolute minimum of attention required--and resenting even that--because for whatever reason you can't forcibly eject the unwanted party.

It is required of the new guy to learn proper procedures and get up to speed. The reciprocal obligation is that the veterans are to instruct and oversee the new guy until that proficiency is acquired. New Guy must learn; Veteran must teach. Expecting the New Guy to perform up to standard otherwise is unreasonable, and inevitably creates a hostile work or play environment; when this is not accidental, it is wholly intended as a means of freezing out unwanted people by neglecting and abusing them until the unwanted people leave.

I have seen this play out first-hand many times. So have you. I will hear no gainsaying about this, as I know with certainty that this is not only a thing, but how this works.

That FF14's players dare to claim that they love new players, while simultaneously giving them the Cold Shoulder whenever new players ask to be briefed on what to do (if that is even allowed to be asked; this too happens, going so fast that there is no time for new people to even make the request). If this is what I wanted, I'd remain commited to World of Warcraft.

If you want your organization, your workplace, your game, whatever to be something other than an exclusive club with an inevitably waning membership/roster then this is what is required of you and there is no getting around this. Don't like it? Too bad. It is what it is; conform or die.