The first week
The first week
Nobody can see that you are stuck, nothing replaces being noticed, and the habits that substitute for it all have to be started deliberately.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
Which of the two deploy guides is current
worked out6Decided by checking which matched the scripts
That nobody reads the team channel after 15:00
worked out7Learned from two unanswered afternoons
two things you had to know · nobody told you any of them · the median arrived in week 7 · all two you went and got
Two things nobody told anybody, learned by noticing. Both were visible in week one and neither was legible until much later.
Nobody Can See You
The ordinary mechanism by which a new person gets unstuck is somebody noticing, and remotely there is nothing to notice.
The First Morning, Hour by Hour
A first remote morning has a predictable shape, and knowing it in advance converts most of the disorientation into something ordinary.
Keeping a Record From Day One
A document kept from the first day costs two minutes an evening and is the only way to hold on to what you could see before the place became normal.
What to Do When There Is Nothing to Do
Empty time in a first fortnight is normal, it is nobody's failure, and there are four things worth doing with it that do not require anybody's permission.
The Twenty-Minute Rule
Twenty minutes of looking, then a question. The number is arbitrary and having a number is what makes it work.
Turning Your Camera On, or Not
The camera question is usually argued as a matter of policy, and for a new person it is a practical question with a different answer in week one than in week nine.
Reading Before Asking
Twenty minutes of searching before a question turns a twenty-minute answer into a four-minute one, and the skill is knowing what is findable.
Writing Down What Confused You
Confusion in a first fortnight is data with a short shelf life, and the only way to keep it is to write it down on the day it happens.
The End of the First Week
An hour on the first Friday, spent looking back rather than forward, is worth more than any amount of effort during the week itself.