Once a ball gets rolling in a certain direction, it becomes the default and really, really hard to stop.
This is most true in relationships, including your relationship with your client or boss. The way things start is the way things will continue, likely until the end.
So, you need to be extra super-duper careful about the culture you set up in the first week of work, and to a secondary degree, your first month, and to a tertiary degree, the first quarter. After the first quarter, it’s basically set in stone and won’t change much after that.
During this period, it’s important to strike the balance you want to maintain long-term of how you will work. Just look at the over-under: if during the first week you’re emailing them at 2am then 4am then 6am every night, they will think you’re the hardest-working employee they’ve ever seen. And 6 months later, when you’re just working 9-5, they’ll be disappointed that that original spark was gone. So, you don’t want to over-do it the first week, because that will inevitably lead to disappointment later on. Conversely, you want to really show them your worth and awesomeness during those first few days as well. Thus, the need to find the balance between the two extremes.
This point is just as true, and even more subtle, from the point of view of the boss. When you hire someone, you set their expectations and culture and after the first week or weeks, it becomes hard to change (upward, at least.) A friend of mine just got an intern who is starting in two weeks, and I advised my friend with this: imagine with intern 1, you give them some work Monday morning, enough for the week, their very first Monday on the job, and then have an update meeting to see how it went the following Monday morning. Now compare that to intern 2, whom you give 1 days’ worth of work, and then the following morning you sit down, review it, and plan out that day’s work. Now with intern 2, as they get into the swing of things, learn how you work and your expectations, and start delivering and sharing, you become more comfortable communicating over chat and so forth. You can then meet every other day, to every third day, to every fourth day, to once per week. Which intern will ultimately work harder and do a better job? Yes, that one.
