A reader asks: my onboarding buddy has gone AWOL — what now?

The question (paraphrased):

I started three weeks ago at a mid-sized tech company. My manager assigned an onboarding buddy, and for the first week and a half he was great — answered questions on Slack, walked me through a couple of systems. Then he basically vanished. Two unread Slacks, one “sorry, slammed — will get back to you tomorrow” that was four days ago. I don’t want to be that new hire who complains, but I’m stuck on two things and don’t know who to ask. Help?

This is more common than anyone admits. Onboarding buddy programs work about 60% of the time. The other 40%, the buddy hits a busy week, a project lands, and the new hire becomes collateral damage — not out of malice, just because you’re the lower-priority obligation on their list.

Three moves. None of them involve complaining.

1. Stop treating one person as your only source

The first mistake new hires make when the buddy goes dark is trying harder with the buddy. More pings, more “hey sorry to bug you.” This rarely works, because the buddy is busy and now also feeling guilty, which makes them avoid the Slack thread instead of engaging with it.

Let him off the hook, at least in your own mind. Some percentage of people on every team will be unreliable for onboarding. Your job is not to fix that. Your job is to find the people who will actually help.

The alternatives, roughly in order of cost:

• Your team’s shared channels. Most of your stuck questions have already been asked by someone before you. Before pinging anyone, search for the question in the team channel. You’ll be surprised how often the answer is right there.
• The documented onboarding guide, if there is one. Even if it’s outdated, it’s a starting point.
• Other recent hires. Anyone who joined in the 90 days before you remembers what it’s like. They’re disproportionately willing to answer questions because they recently had the same ones. Find them on the team page and Slack them directly.
• Your peers with adjacent roles. If your buddy was supposed to show you how something works, the person who most needs you to know how it works is usually your closest peer, not your buddy.
• Your manager, for the blocking questions only. Save your manager asks for the things that are actually blocking your work — not for “which Confluence page do I start with.”

Your buddy was one tile in the onboarding mosaic. You can rebuild the mosaic around him.

2. Ask better questions

If you’re stuck on two things, resist the urge to send “I’m stuck, can we chat?” That’s a costly ask. It requires a meeting. Most busy people will not schedule a meeting with a new hire on short notice.

Instead, translate each stuck question into a 30-second ask you can send to anyone:

• Specific: “What’s the right Confluence/Notion space for [X]?”
• Specific: “Is [Y] something we use a standard template for, or does each team do it their own way?”
• Specific: “Who owns [Z] — I’ve got a question about it but don’t want to go to the wrong person.”

Questions like this are answered in a line or two. They’re easy to respond to. You can send five of them to different people and get four answers within a day.

The bad version is: “I’m confused about X, Y, and Z, can we grab 30?” That’s a meeting request. New hires who lead with meeting requests get replied to on the “I’ll get to it when I can” timeline. New hires who lead with specific 30-second questions get replied to in minutes.

3. Tell your manager — but about the work, not the buddy

This is the step most people get wrong. Either they don’t tell their manager anything, and drift quietly for weeks, or they tell their manager “my buddy has been unresponsive” and the manager has to go have an awkward conversation with a senior IC about responsiveness to a new hire.

The better version: bring up the two things you’re stuck on, not the person.

“Want to flag a couple of things I’m trying to get unstuck on. I’m looking for the right way to run [X] — couldn’t find a clear pattern in the docs — and I need to understand how the team handles [Y]. Any chance you could point me at who would know?”

Your manager will solve it in 30 seconds by naming two people or sending two Slack intros. You didn’t complain. You didn’t make the buddy’s issue visible. You got unstuck. If the buddy pattern continues past week four, your manager will usually notice on their own — they see their team’s activity — and adjust.

Why the “don’t complain about the buddy” rule matters

Buddies are almost always volunteers on top of a full role. If the first thing your manager hears is “my buddy isn’t responsive,” they have to navigate a messy political situation with someone who was trying to help. Most managers will file the complaint away as “new hire with high maintenance” before they do anything about it.

If instead your manager hears “I’m stuck on X and Y,” they can solve it without any interpersonal cost. That’s the version you want them hearing.

Six months from now, when you’re well established, you can share the observation casually: “by the way, the buddy program was a little hit or miss for me — is there a version that works better?” That conversation, from an established employee, produces action. The same conversation from a three-week-old new hire produces eye-rolls.

The thing that feels unfair

Your buddy was assigned to help you. He’s not doing it. You should not have to do extra work to compensate.

All of that is true, and still doesn’t matter for the next ninety days. The job is to get up the ramp. The onboarding program is one of your tools, not your entitlement. If one tool is broken, you pick up others. The people who accept this early and find their own way tend to integrate faster than the people who wait for the program to work.

What good onboarding looks like, without relying on a buddy

Built out of:

• The 30-60-90 conversation with your manager. If you haven’t had this yet, it’s the single highest-leverage hour in your first three months. See the 30/60/90 plan that doesn’t make you look like a try-hard for the version that doesn’t feel forced.
• Two or three peer coffee chats in weeks 2-4. Not “tell me about the team” — specific: “I’m trying to understand how [function] interacts with ours, would love 15 minutes.”
• A weekly Friday self-debrief. What did I learn this week? What am I still unclear on? What’s one question I’ll ask next week? Written, even briefly. Compounds fast.
• One senior person you pay attention to. Not officially assigned, not called a mentor — just someone whose meetings you watch and whose writing you read. Your best signal of what “good” looks like on this team.

That’s the onboarding stack that works even when the assigned pieces break.

Edge cases

• If the buddy is actually sick, on a project crisis, or on leave: give them a real off-ramp. “Completely understand you’re slammed — I’m going to bounce my questions off Sarah for now, and maybe we grab lunch in a couple of weeks once things settle.” Low drama, preserves the relationship.
• If you were promised formal onboarding and it’s materially missing: some companies just have bad onboarding. Raise it with your manager as a process question at week 6: “I wanted to give feedback on onboarding — here’s what worked and what could have been stronger.” Leadership usually welcomes specific feedback from new hires.

Do this today

Write down the two things you’re stuck on. For each, translate it into a 30-second question you can send to any colleague. Pick two people — not your buddy, not your manager — who would know. Send the questions. Watch how fast you get unstuck without anyone having to save you.

For the broader first-week plan that builds this kind of self-sufficiency, see the week 1 checklist. For the 30/60/90 version that anchors your ramp-up with or without a buddy, see the 30/60/90 plan.

—

If you have a question like this, send it in and it may become a Reader Q column. Anonymity guaranteed.