Starting a New Job

Transcript

1. The first day of a job is mostly paperwork and names.
2. You will forget nearly all of the names by lunch.
3. Everyone tells you not to worry, which does not help much.
4. The second day is worse, because the welcome is over.
5. You are given real work and no clear idea of the order.
6. Asking questions early costs less than fixing mistakes later.
7. Most people are happy to explain their own part twice.
8. They are less happy to explain it a fifth time.
9. Write things down, even the details that seem obvious now.
10. In week three the meetings begin to make sense.
11. You start hearing the same three problems in different rooms.
12. Those problems are usually the reason the job exists.
13. By the second month you can answer a question for somebody else.
14. That is the moment the job stops being new.
15. Nobody announces it, and it arrives later than you hoped.