First work
Your first work
Finish something small in week three. The point is not the output; it is everything you are forced to learn in order to get it finished.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
That the test suite takes forty minutes
worked out3Nobody mentions this until you are waiting for it
That deployment happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays
told3Volunteered by a reviewer who assumed you knew
two things you had to know · one of them somebody told you · the median arrived in week 3 · the other one you went and got
Two things learned from one small piece of work, neither of which would have come from any amount of reading.
The First Thing You Finish
The point of the first finished piece of work is not the work. It is everything you are forced to learn in order to get it finished.
Choosing What to Work On First
Three sources will tell you what is worth doing in your first fortnight, and only one of them is your manager.
The Documentation Only You Can Fix
You are the only person in the organisation who has recently followed the instructions, which makes fixing them the one contribution you are uniquely able to make.
The First Time You Break Something
Everybody breaks something in their first month. What is actually assessed is how long it took you to say so.
Showing Work Before It Is Finished
Work shown at a quarter finished gets the same review as work shown at finished, and the review arrives while it can still change anything.
Asking for Review
Who you ask to review determines what the review finds, and the obvious choice is almost never the person whose name is on the thing you changed.
Estimating Anything in Your First Month
Your first estimates will be wrong, the reason is almost never the work, and saying what you cannot see is more useful than any number.
What Your First Month Signals
Judgements about a new person form in the first month, rest on two or three small events each, and almost none of them are about the quality of the work.