The Rooms · 03 of 12
The First Day
The only day where everyone is watching you and nobody expects anything from you yet. Spend it well.
What they’re reading
Whether you're going to fit. Whether you think you're better than the room. How much effort you made on a day when you didn't have to.
What to wear
What you wore to the final interview, or half a notch under it. Then spend the first week calibrating down toward the room. It is easy to relax your dress over time. It is very hard to escalate it without everyone noticing.
What to bring
A paper notebook and a pen. Taking notes on paper on day one reads as attentive in a way a laptop never will, and people remember it.
When to arrive
Fifteen minutes before they told you. Not more. Somebody physically has to let you in, and being there at 7:40 for an 8:30 start creates a problem rather than an impression.
The first sixty seconds
With every new person, the same three beats. Your name. Your role in one sentence. One question about theirs. Then move on.
James, I'm joining on the product side. What do you work on?
How to act
Listen for
who actually decides things, as opposed to who has the title, because in most organizations those are two different lists. Listen for who people go to when they're stuck. And listen to what the room complains about, because in six months that's what you'll be measured on fixing.
When you speak
rarely. Week one is a listening week and it is the only one you get. In meetings, ask one clarifying question and take notes. Do not offer a solution in your first week, especially when you have a good one. The good one will still be good in three weeks and by then you'll know why nobody tried it.
How you speak
in questions, not statements. “How does this normally work” beats every observation you could make, and it gets you the same information without spending anything.
Your body
open, unhurried, available. Eat lunch with people rather than at your desk, even when you'd rather not, and especially on day one.
The thing you can't fake
names. Write every one down on day one with a note about the person, and use them correctly on day two. It's the single highest-return thing you will do that week and almost nobody does it.
The mistake
Talking about where you came from. Nobody at the new company cares how it was done at the old one, and definitely not in week one. Every time you say “at my last company,” you spend credibility you haven't earned yet. Wait ninety days.
The guide
All twelve rooms,
with the drawings.
Fifty-eight pages. Free, and there is no email field.