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

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 ?

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

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 :)"

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 :)

> 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.

"your job is not your job; your job is to find a better job."

Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (p. 31).