Story
The New Job
Language focus: Present simple; have/has; feel + adjective; basic work vocabulary
Before you read
- Do you work?
- What job do you have or want?
- Is it easy or hard to start a new job?
The story A1
Sam has a new job.
He meets new people.
He learns new things.
He works hard.
He feels happy.
Key words
job
noun
work that someone does regularly for money
"Sam has a new job."
learn
verb
to get new knowledge or skills
"He learns new things every day."
colleague
noun
a person you work with
"His colleagues are helpful."
Comprehension
- 1 What does Sam have?
- 2 Who does he meet?
- 3 How does he feel?
Discussion
- 1 What jobs do people in your family do?
Personal reflection
- 1 What job would you like to have? Why?
Activities
- Talk about jobs you know
- Draw a workplace scene
- Practise saying what job you do or want
Writing task
Write 3 sentences: 'My job / future job is ___. I ___. I feel ___ about it.'
Language focus: Past simple; describing feelings over time (at first... then... now); work vocabulary
Before you read
- Have you ever started a new job or course?
- What was difficult about it?
- How did you become more confident?
The story A2
Sam started a new job last month and found it quite difficult at first.
He did not know his colleagues and was not sure about the processes.
He felt nervous in meetings and worried about making mistakes.
But after a few weeks, he began to feel more comfortable.
His manager praised his effort, and he started to enjoy the work.
Key words
process
noun
a series of steps for doing something in a particular way
"He was not sure about the processes at first."
praised
verb
said something was good; expressed approval
"His manager praised his effort."
comfortable
adjective
feeling at ease and not anxious
"He began to feel more comfortable."
Comprehension
- 1 What was difficult for Sam at the start?
- 2 What helped him feel more confident?
- 3 How did his feelings change?
Discussion
- 1 What makes starting something new difficult?
Personal reflection
- 1 Tell your partner about a time you started something new.
Activities
- Write about a time you felt nervous in a new situation
- Discuss: what makes a good first day?
- Role play a job interview
Writing task
Write a short paragraph about starting something new — a job, course, or activity. What was hard? What helped?
Language focus: Past simple and continuous; expressing internal states; contrast between appearance and reality; professional vocabulary
Before you read
- What is the difference between being competent and feeling competent?
- Why do new starts feel particularly vulnerable?
- What is the role of other people in helping us adapt?
The story B1
Sam's first three weeks in the new role were harder than he had told anyone. He was competent — his background was relevant, his skills were applicable — but there is a particular kind of difficulty that comes from doing something you can theoretically do in an environment you do not yet know.
He spent the first week learning which questions were fine to ask and which would mark him as someone who had not thought hard enough. He spent the second learning the informal hierarchies that never appear in an organisational chart but govern most of what actually happens. The third week he spent mostly pretending to be more certain than he was.
His manager was encouraging without being effusive, which was what Sam needed — someone who noticed the effort without making a performance of it. A colleague named Priya answered his questions without making them feel like questions, which was its own kind of art.
By the fourth week, something had shifted. He was not yet fluent in the work — there would be months before that — but he knew where he was in it. He knew what he could do confidently, what he needed to check, and who to ask. This was not confidence, exactly; it was orientation.
He thought about what had helped. Not the formal induction, which he had already largely forgotten. Not the training materials, which were thorough but generic. What had helped were the small, unremarked moments: a colleague who had asked how he was finding it and seemed to genuinely want to know, a manager who had said 'well done' once, simply, without any context except that she thought he deserved to hear it.
Key words
applicable
adjective
relevant to and useful for a particular situation
"His skills were applicable to the new role."
hierarchy
noun
a system in which people or things are ranked according to importance
"Informal hierarchies govern how things actually work."
orientation
noun
the process of becoming familiar with a new situation
"He had achieved orientation, if not confidence."
effusive
adjective
expressing too much enthusiasm; over-enthusiastic
"His manager was encouraging without being effusive."
Comprehension
- 1 What is the specific difficulty Sam describes in the first paragraph?
- 2 What distinction does Sam make between confidence and orientation?
- 3 What actually helped him adapt, and what did not?
Discussion
- 1 Why do informal aspects of a workplace (relationships, unspoken rules) often matter more than formal ones?
Personal reflection
- 1 Think of a time you had to adapt to a new environment. What did you find most helpful?
Activities
- Discuss: what makes a good induction into a new job or course?
- Write advice for someone starting a new job next week
- Debate: first impressions in a new job are more important than performance
Writing task
Write a short paragraph: What is the difference between being competent and feeling competent? Why does the gap exist?
Language focus: Sophisticated psychological observation; vocabulary of professional adaptation; understatement; the gap between external competence and internal experience; institutional analysis
Before you read
- Why do new environments expose aspects of ourselves that familiar ones conceal?
- What is the relationship between vulnerability and learning?
- What obligations do institutions have to people who are new to them?
The story B2
Sam had been, in his previous role, someone who knew what he was doing. This sounds like a small thing, but it is not. Knowing what you are doing is not simply a matter of skills; it is a form of security — a set of established responses to situations you can recognise, read the room, and move through without expending the cognitive energy that unfamiliarity requires. In his new job, that security was gone.
He was technically qualified. No one had hired him in error. But qualification is a different thing from fluency, and fluency in a new role is not something you bring with you — it is something you build, slowly, by making small mistakes that you cannot afford to make in front of the wrong people at the wrong time.
He was, in short, good at his job in a way that was entirely invisible for the first six weeks. He watched himself in meetings — careful, measured, contributing just enough — and understood that what he was demonstrating was not actually his capability but his management of the appearance of capability. This was exhausting in a way he had not fully anticipated.
What helped was not formal. The induction had been thorough and well-intentioned; it had also been almost completely useless as a guide to what the organisation was actually like. What helped was a colleague, Priya, who had been there four years and who seemed to understand without being told that what Sam needed was not information but context: not what things were, but why they were the way they were.
He had been there eight months now and was beginning to feel, for the first time, like someone who worked there rather than someone who was working at working there. The distinction was small and would have been invisible to anyone else. To Sam, it felt like arriving, finally, after a very long journey.
He thought sometimes about the people who must have started alongside him in other organisations, in roles where no Priya had appeared. He wondered how they were getting on.
Key words
cognitive
adjective
relating to mental processes such as thinking and understanding
"Unfamiliarity requires extra cognitive energy."
fluency
noun
the ability to do something smoothly and naturally, without effort
"Fluency in a new role takes time to build."
well-intentioned
adjective
meant to be helpful or good, even if the result is not
"The induction was thorough and well-intentioned."
context
noun
the background information that helps you understand something
"Priya gave him context, not just information."
Comprehension
- 1 What does Sam mean by saying that 'knowing what you are doing is a form of security'?
- 2 What does Sam observe about what he was 'demonstrating' in meetings, and why was it exhausting?
- 3 What distinction does Sam make at the end between 'working there' and 'working at working there'?
Discussion
- 1 The story implies that informal mentoring (like Priya's) is more valuable than formal induction. Do you agree? What do institutions get wrong about supporting new people?
Personal reflection
- 1 Have you experienced the gap between external competence and internal uncertainty? What helped you bridge it?
Activities
- Debate: organisations have a responsibility to actively support new people, not just train them
- Write a memo from the perspective of someone designing a better induction process
- Discuss: what does 'belonging' feel like in a professional context?
Writing task
Write an essay (200–250 words): 'Institutions are often well-designed for people who already belong and poorly designed for people who are just arriving.' Do you agree? Use the story and your own experience to explore this.