Ask HN: I just started my first real workday, any tips?

[melvinroest]

Hi HN!

I have a question.

One of Julia Evan's posts give amazing tips like maintaining a brag document. It's a log of every workday with a short description of what you have done that day [1]. When your performance review comes around, you can remember exactly what you did! There was a more debated, but in my mind interesting, post about a career cold start algorithm [2].

I am wondering, are there other tips that I should think about when one just joined a startup and had their first day?

I created a reflection document. I state what I did, what I thought went well and what could go better as I think it's more effective than a brag document as it helps with more processes (your own reflection, retrospectives and performance review). I also read the whole discussion on the career cold start and made my own variant of it. I call it: meet everyone one on one and get to know them.

One nuance: the place where I started, Triply [3], is seemingly not a pure startup. IMO, it is transforming to a scale-up, as they are looking for developers.

It made me realize that the tips might differ on the startup, scale-up and corporate level. So I wonder if people think whether there are certain tips that pertain only to a certain company size. Or how do things differ from US vs EU vs Asia vs <categories I forget>?

Second nuance: I know it's tough for some during the corona lockdown. It's one of the reasons why I mention that they are hiring. I hope it helps someone/somewhat.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16550270

[3] triply.cc, based in Amsterdam. The name pertains to linked data (triple stores). But I like to think it pertains to "three times is a charm!" :D

[petargyurov]

Congrats on starting!

One bit of advice I would personally give is to remember that work is just work.

You will have responsibilities, deadlines, arguments, critisms and one day you might find yourself anxious and stressed out. When that happens, it's nice to remind yourself that the critical bug or whatever you're working on is meanigless in the grand scheme of things. No matter how passionate you are about your company, your personal life and principles should always come first.

It sounds obvious but humans tend to forget that kind of stuff.

[kugelblitz]

It doesn't sound obvious at first. Once you have a few years of work behind you, it starts becoming more obvious.

Once you see CEOs say "Everything's fine" one day, and 2 weeks later lay off 10% of the company (or 70% of my current team) with no real warning beforehand, then it starts becoming REAL obvious.

Being a freelance contractor, working 4 to 12 month projects at a time with different companies, I've seen quite a bit of crap.

But being a freelancer / contractor, I've built a client network plus a "radar" for potential trouble (e.g. company is re-organizing the whole tech team for the 3rd time in 3 years, or a new round of financing is coming up and the last 2 quarterlies were below forecast).

[m12k]

I've found this is easier after changing jobs a couple times. At some point you'll look back at what you did at your previous job, and most likely you'll barely remember exactly what it was or why it was considered important. Certainly nothing to warrant stressing out about it. Realizing that the same will apply to your current job in just a couple years really helps put things into perspective. Looking back, you're much more likely to remember whether you were happy or stressed than any of those details that seem so all-consumingly important right now.

[melvinroest]

This is an amazing back to basic tip that I actually fully implement. My variation is: work is just work, and when working make the most of it during the time that you work.

Without that addition, one could interpret the "work is just work" too negatively.

The discussion that this advice has created is something that I'll reread a few times as I have experienced similar experiences while I was studying at university.

[exdsq]

+1. I need to remind myself about this almost weekly.

[hirundo]

Set aside some time at the beginning of each day to buff your tools and skills. Over time these sessions compound like interest and make you wealthier in human capital and a more valuable employee.

I do it for one pomodoro, 25 minutes. For me an example might be installing and learning a new vim addon or scripting a common task or focusing on a tough corner of a programming language. Something useful to the job but not directly making progress on an assignment. This is an easier habit to acquire if you do it from the start, before your routine consolidates.

[MrCapybara]

This is a great idea!

Sometimes I take time from some task to do things like this, but as this time off isn't a regular ocurrence, once it does happen, it ends up taking a lot of time, making me feel like I'm delaying an assignment. Small but regular steps like this could help with this feeling.

[melvinroest]

That is an amazing tip. Do you have some stories on what worked for you and what didn’t? I’ll use them as a form of inspiration.

[masukomi]

Don't be afraid to admit ignorance.

"I don't know what that means." and "Can you explain that to me?" are two of the most wonderful phrases. I use them regularly and have been programming for over 30yrs. Every time I do, I learn something new.

My coworkers know that I'll speak up if I don't understand something, and when you're finally experienced, it helps the new kids to not feel like such imposters to see that an experienced coworker doesn't know all the things.

[tfandango]

Upvote! New people or people interviewing are always afraid to ask questions. I find they think people expect them to always know the answer. I'd much rather hire someone who will find the right people and ask questions when they don't know how to do something. Communication skills.

[erkanerol]

Here are my tips: https://erkanerol.github.io/post/adapting-a-project/

Quote from the blog post: "Last but not least. Feel responsible from day one. You are a part of the team and you are responsible for every failure and every success. More or less. If there is a pain in somewhere in your team, feel it in your heart. In companies, there are always some “local people” and “tourists”. Tourists are only interested in “fancy” things. They follow their interests. They hate problematic situations. They don’t take some much responsibility in case of failure. They always blame decision makers since they never try to be one of them. When they get bored, they just fly to yet another city. In reality, there are lots of limitations and we are not living in a perfect world. Unfortunately they are not aware of this fact. Maybe they are just prefering ignoring it. I don’t know. What I want to say be one of the “local people”. Local people know not only good places of the city but also the suburb. Local people think about how to manage the city, how to “survive” in the city, how to make the city more beautiful. They can live with the bad sides of the city. At least for a while :)"

[s1t5]

> Last but not least. Feel responsible from day one. You are a part of the team and you are responsible for every failure and every success. More or less. If there is a pain in somewhere in your team, feel it in your heart.

In a new role it takes a while to start doing actual work let alone impactful work. That's even more true when it's your first job. So I would give the opposite advice - feel responsibility for your work, not for everything that happens within the team/company. And if you ever feel something deep in your heart at work especially if it's someone else's problems, that's a sign that maybe you're taking things way too seriously.

The local people people vs tourists dichotomy also seems outright wrong - there are more categories than these two and neither of the two describes a good employee.

[tomtomtom1]

how can you reconcile that with the fact that job-hopping in 2-5 years is proven to be a more effective way to raise your salary?

Being seen as "local" may have its benefits but I doubt that being one is more beneficial.

[hazz99]

For those looking for more information on the "tourists and locals" concept, search for organisational citizenship.

There's a bunch of research of what elicits citizenship behaviours (high commitment, identifying with the company, etc) and what doesn't.

Lots of stuff in the HR literature!

[watertom]

I've managed a number of interns and new hires over the years. Here is what I tell my newbies.

Keep a small notebook, or use a to-do app and track everything that gets assigned to you. If something is assigned to you make sure that you get a clear deliverable time or date and time. If you have any questions about what's been assigned to you ask the person who assigned the task, even it your question doesn't pop up until later.

If you take notes in meeting etc. use a separate notebook or app for the notes. You want to be sure that you don't clutter up your to do list with notes.

First thing in the morning: - Review your to-do list. - Check your calendar for the day - Check your inbox

Before you leave at the end of the day: - Create a bullet list of everything you did for the day. - Check your calendar for the next day - Check your inbox one last time. - Check to make sure that you don't have any unfinished emails.

Learn how to use all the office tools, even if you think they are stupid, lame, outdated. It's what you'll be using, complaining won't change the fact that you'll need to conform. First impressions.

There will be a lot of things that won't make sense, roll with it. Intra and inter system dependencies drive most things that don't make sense when you walk into a new place. Telling people how to do it better won't win you any points.

Take a few months of your first job and be humble. Listen more than you talk. I like to tell new hires to be like a human Golden Retriever. Positive attitude, want to help always, look like you are smiling all the time. Don't bark unless it's absolutely necessary. Look good at all times.

I'm not suggesting that you completely alter your personality, just ease into things. You'll be working for the next 40-50 years of your life so you have plenty of time to be yourself.

[blahbhthrow3748]

Ask questions and be willing to discuss your thought process with people. Don't be afraid to try and improve things even if they've been like that a long time. Try and find something to work on you're genuinely interested in.

My first job out of school (8 years ago) was a pretty effective springboard. Unfortunately the secret to success was basically to be excessively keen and interested in doing anything and everything. At the time it was fun - I worked too much and I made myself look foolish at times, but I was junior enough that it didn't matter.

Now that I've been around for a couple years and I'm a little more jaded I don't think I could do it again. But if you're very keen I think just being enthusiastic and learning things will get you far.

[mister_hn]

Close social media tabs and silence your smartphone notifications.

You will be blessing the concentration you'll gain

[jonnypotty]

Try and be principled in your interactions with people and with the work you produce. Don't get too confused with the myriad of tactics and behaviors people pretend are required for success in the work place. Work is people, be the best person you can be. Good luck :)

[mathattack]

1) Find a way to make the folks around, above and below you look good.

2) Invest in both technical and productivity learning.

3) Until you’ve built a reputation, show up a little early and stay a little late. First impressions disproportionately matter, and this is all they can judge you on.

4) Know how your internal and external customers use your product to hit their goals.

5) Be as nice to the security guards and admins as you are to the CEO.

6) Write lots of Thank You notes. Email people’s bosses when you send.

[mintym]

Write everything down. Keep detailed todo lists, break todos into smaller units when necessary. At the end of the day try to give yourself an easy task for the morning, so you can accomplish something right away before you're fully in the zone. Listen to the salespeople, they might be promising some feature that's not on your radar yet. Don't eat the donuts.

[explorigin]

There have been some comments about staying off HN (or any news site). But some tech news can further your knowledge and skills...so instead of foregoing news altogether, just don't make it the first thing you do in the morning. Instead, get some nugget of productivity done first.

Productivity, for me, has a strong "momentum" component to it. Once you get going, it's easy to keep going as long as you can keep distractions down. But if you start on a news site, that sets your momentum for the morning in the wrong place.

Another thing along these lines are to leave a task unfinished in the evening so that you have a place to jump right back to in the morning (balance this with the ability to not think about work after work).

[melvinroest]

Thanks for the momentum tips. I actually visit HN after I'm done with work (it's 17:30 here in Amsterdam).

The unfinished work thingy is a handy one, I'm testing it now. Thanks!

[jaaames]

Whatever role you're in, don't underestimate the value of relationships, communication, and soft skills in being able to influence the impact and value of the work you can deliver.

If you can persuade a product manager to drop a bad feature you might be able to ship a more valuable feature at a higher quality.

If you can persuade a procurement office to change a supplier you might be able to ship a better design faster.

If you can get involved in the hiring process you might be able to pick the team you work with.

Always make friends with the admin person, accounting that pays you, and stay on the right side of HR.

[RhysU]

+1 on knowing the administrative assistants. They run everything.

[melvinroest]

Thanks for the amazing response so far. I just closed off the second day and just read all your responses.

Day 3 will see a lot of incoming change :D

It's a lot of info, but here is what I digested and what I'll experiment with:

- 25 min. of skill building time

- Work is work, I have a life outside of that. In fact, one of my own tips is to be playful at certain times to lighten the mood. Living a life outside of work really helps with that to stay playful and keep team spirits up.

- "Take care of your health. Eat well and exercise. Sleep is important."

- Admitting ignorance

- Feel responsible for the company (I read the discussion, I figured I might try the other side if feeling responsible has mixed results)

- Keep separate apps and notebooks

----- Working at Triply in Amsterdam:

If you're interested in working with Triply -- and me ;-) -- and can work in Amsterdam, medior/senior software engineers are still looked for [1].

We're focusing on improving the developer experience for using linked data and creating linked data (sets). As I understood it, the whole topic is too academic, Triply is changing that by making it more UX friendly for developers and data analysts.

[1] https://triply.cc/career (I'm not sure if they do remote)

[blaser-waffle]

- Personal Analog Assistant: literally just a small notepad where I jot notes and To-Dos. A cell phone or desktop app could work just as well, but I like the paper approach.

- "Spellbook": any command that's not something bog-standard and simple gets added to a Notepad++ file; e.g. a bunch of Cisco commands go in the Network Spellbook, SQL queries go in the DB Spellbook, Linux one-liners in the Bash Spellbook, etc.

[melvinroest]

Your tip reminds me of an amazing app for the Mac: Boost Note [1]. It allows you to have all the spellbooks in one place.

[1] https://boostnote.io

[gabrielsroka]

Take care of your health. Eat well and exercise. Sleep is important.

Learn about personal finance and the power of compound interest. Create a budget and start saving for retirement. Contribute to a 401k/IRA/etc. Your goal should be to save 12-15%. If you can't save that much today, start lower, but increase it every 6-12 months and every time you get a pay raise. Save 6 months of expenses for a rainy day fund -- this is especially important in 2020. Pay yourself first. Save for a vacation every year and take it. Travel the world and get a different perspective.

Every year you don't save for retirement means you'll need to work another year, or save even more when you're older (think 20-30% of your salary).

I'm making up for lost time now. I used to buy new cars and toys. I bought my current car 27 years ago; it still runs great.

I wish someone had told me this 30 years ago. I hope I would have listened.

[Catsandkites]

What would some recommended reading about saving for retirement? For example, I have a healthy amount of savings but none is invested and it sits in an account doing nothing (@ 0.1%).

I read the obvious subreddits, have a basic working knowledge of financial concepts, understand that I should just invest in the broad market / ETFs and not touch it for decades.

But when I go to invest, I feel I have no idea what I'm actually doing. When I look for brokers I'm bombarded with advertising and marketing and get frustrated with what I feel is a lot of dishonesty. Decades of stories about pension funds screwing people over mean I have no trust in the "systems" at all, which is probably wrong. Why would I pick one broker over another? Or a pension fund over another? Should I just go with a big name like Vanguard as I could always move it later?

For example, I've never had anyone answer this question: If a pick company Z, invest through them and one day they go bust or disappear, what actually happened to what I invested? I understand risk and that some financial instruments are like bets and so on but seemingly can't wrap my head around this concept. If I buy specific stock Y, through broker Z and broker Z disappears, what happens to my stock Y? Like where is that actual record kept that I have X quantity of stock Y?

It's really dumb questions like these that stop me doing anything and lead me to fill an account, technically losing money from inflation.

[dsm4ck]

Make sure your desk is set up correctly ergonomically speaking. Start early and your back and neck will thank you later. Don't hesitate to request a different keyboard and mouse if what you are provided isn't comfortable.

[rebelrexx858]

And if they won't provide, look to bring your own. This is a big part of your day, being comfortable is huge.

[ipiz0618]

Try to understand what your colleagues have done. This will help you get to really know the team culture.

If you're a programmer, read through some parts of the codebase, if possible, to get a sense of how your colleagues are doing their work.

[melvinroest]

As in just open random files and read? Or open up a UI and see what it does under a debugger? Or open up the test files first to see how things are supposed to be called/used?

I wonder what your structure is.

[egberts1]

Forget the ergonomics, tackle the requirements by diving into it. A good developer knows how to help the system engineer meet their goal once the requirements are understood.

[docdeek]

Congrats.

I'd advise you to avoid setting too many goals each day, especially when you are getting up to speed at a new workplace. I like to make a morning checklist of just three things that - if I was to achieve them - I'd finish the day thinking "That was a good day".

Not my original idea but seems to work, and three is a far more manageable number than five. ;)

[pensv0]

Shameless plug: I wrote an article exactly for people like you https://medium.com/@lolski/career-tips-for-young-software-en...

Congrats on starting your first job!