Rookies watch how you treat the equipment manager. That’s their actual orientation.

New people learn the culture by watching, and what they watch most closely is how the people with no leverage get treated. Everybody is pleasant to whoever can affect them, so that tells a newcomer nothing. Your behaviour toward someone who cannot do anything for you is the honest reading, and it sets their expectation for how they will be treated once the novelty wears off.

Notice who in your setting has the least standing and be properly decent to them this week, by name, where people can see. Not a performance. Just the ordinary courtesy you would give someone important.