Entry level jobs first day

tim-smith · 2025-07-07T14:34:04.305Z

The very first day is always paperwork. The first day of doing “real” work is always figuring out how to document your work. EG, in helpdesk, how do you get a ticket? How do you close the ticket? You’re always worried that someone will call to ask for help with something you’ve never heard of, but your company (or the internet) should have plenty of information on how to fix it. The biggest trick is conveying a sense of confidence.

Nerf_Herder · 2025-07-07T14:55:02.823Z

When I started in IT at the Help Desk, they had a poster on the wall of a guy behind a desk wearing an army helment trying to answer 10 phones with bullets wizzing past him. That about sums it up!

tb33t · 2025-07-07T15:45:08.720Z

I’m trying to recall my very first day in IT. I mainly remember getting basic access & checking & confirming my logins were all working. Then the next 2 weeks were lots of training on standards & procedures along with training with the Lead Tech.

chrisdavis8 · 2025-07-07T15:58:13.084Z

First day of public education IT was paperwork and learning the imaging system that was in place at the time. Since the teachers were on summer break and doing PD stuff (they weren’t due back on campus for at least a month) there wasn’t much introduction wise to be done. The IT department was 3 people total back then.

For my current job with the state it was paperwork then policies and new hire videos and courses which took about a day or 2 total. I spent the first 5 months in the field so later that week I actually got down to doing actual IT stuff while traveling around the region I was responsible for and meeting folks at the respective Health Units I supported. I did a scaled back version of this when I moved to the agency HQ campus to support the Lab personnel.

thedatamaster · 2025-07-07T17:19:46.501Z

I showed up at the reception desk on my start date, as instructed in the e-mail. They had no idea who I was. Nobody informed them I was coming. They had to call around to find someone in HR to come get me. My new boss was not in. They forgot to tell him they hired me and set a start date. So I’m sitting with HR and they give me the usual pile of paperwork that you have to fill out when you start. The only problem is, they sent that all over e-mail to me, and I had already filled it out.

I thought it was just our HR department that was bad. How in the world do these employees make so much and screw up the most important of details?

Great story by the way, thanks for the share!

thedatamaster · 2025-07-07T17:22:35.252Z

Also, Welcome to the community @spiceuser-ln12! Be sure to introduce yourself to everyone:

Welcome to Spiceworks Community! - General - Spiceworks Community

WaynsTaftU · 2025-07-07T17:37:03.081Z

Unfortunately, it happens all over. My wife’s office sometimes gets laptops sent to them from their IT group (based in another state) for remote employees instead of sending the equipment directly to the employee who could be in another state and was hired as strictly remote. People do not read instructions, and it is very frustrating.

edrubin1718 · 2025-07-07T19:22:43.186Z

My first day was doing deskside support so after setup I shadowed another tech, and was asked to please come back from lunch, since a predecessor had gone to lunch on day 1 and never came back

Jay-Updegrove · 2025-07-07T19:26:02.787Z

Where I worked before, we had a lady on-board then off-board after lunch, didn’t even last a whole day

kchamburglar · 2025-07-07T21:09:32.380Z

First day is normally on boarding but once im at my desk and logged into everything my go to is a knowledge base or documentation if they have it or look in the ticketing system for the recently closed tickets, if your new coworkers are good they document how they fixed it not just reset xyz and closing so you can learn the quick repeditive tasks. also if there is phones listen to the call and try to search tickets and see if you can “solve” it. Never be willing to only solve a problem one way think outside the box.

spiceuser-ln12 · 2025-07-08T06:55:07.445Z

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I guess it was pure luck that you knew people in the organization already huh?

Suzanne-Spiceworks · 2025-07-08T11:51:57.275Z

A post was merged into an existing topic: Introduce yourself to the community!

general-tsao · 2025-07-08T13:12:24.951Z

I spent about 3 MONTHS absorbing information (I certainly wouldn’t call it training…), then I just started to take on tasks that I knew had to be done and no one else was doing…Your first couple of WEEKS will probably leave you feeling pretty useless and “lacking in knowledge”, the trick is to power through that until you get to the point where you feel confident, and they trust you. Some people can’t hack that.

Jay-Updegrove · 2025-07-08T13:18:17.889Z

I’m betting @PatrickFarrell went to that company specifically because of those he knew already, though.

PatrickFarrell · 2025-07-08T18:45:24.947Z

Correct, they encouraged me to apply for the open position.

sprothero · 2025-07-10T10:47:54.707Z

When I joined my current company, we had “induction”, it is now called “on-boarding”. The name is unimportant since I never had it, not really sure why not. I have been here 29 years.

joejoethehitman · 2025-07-10T15:18:10.215Z

As many others have stated training, paper work, overviews, etc. My current company has MANY training videos you must watch the first week, when you can, you get through those.

My biggest advice is that you have old fashioned pen and paper to take notes. You are going to be exposed to many new things, people, technologies, proprietary systems/processes that only pertain to your company. Be courteous to those showing you around and training and take notes. Don’t try to type notes in on a phone. It is too slow. The company will be trying to get you up to speed as quick as possible so note taking is the quickest method. You can then reference back to your notes as you get more on your own and not having to ask questions in reference to things that have already been covered.

With this all stated, don’t be afraid to ask questions.

ldobson01 · 2025-07-10T15:21:57.994Z

first half of first day is usually orientation and meeting everyone in the office. second half of first day you either learn of the backlog that has piled up due to lack of staff or you are given all of the previous persons workload

spiceuser-bucln · 2025-07-10T23:09:49.410Z

(post deleted by author)

spiceuser-bucln · 2025-07-10T23:17:20.139Z

When I started my first assignment as a programmer (Cobol on Honeywell 8000 series mainframes) a senior coworker give me this bit of advice:

Things will break and you will be called to fix them. When you do, make damn sure that it’s really fixed before you release it back to the users.

People more or less tolerate stuff breaking, in part because it’s anonymous and impersonal. They are far less tolerate of “fixes” that don’t fix the problem, in part because it’s you telling you fixed it. This makes it personal.