Crucial First Week
Compared to your first day your first week hardly matters. The first couple of days at your new job will see ups and downs. Resist the urge during your first week to dive right in and begin contributing as you must get the feel of your new environment. The reason is you really have no idea how things get done at your new job and lack of this understanding may create a lot of enemies-both hidden and open. Taking assignments is important but don't go the whole hog in your first week.
Details about company
Learn all you can about your new company before you walk in. See if the company has effective training and orientation programs and with whom they compete. Look confident when directing your inquiries to people so that no offence is taken for your requests for information and guidance and your queries are treated as necessary. Ask about training, documentation and other resources to educate yourself.
Plan for First 90 days
A rough outline of a learning plan will help you focus during your first 90 crucial days. There will be a lot to do and learn so having some sort of plan will make that a little less daunting.
Ask for as much material as you can
Reading up on internal company policies, procedures and specification will make your first week a lot easier. Be careful about what you ask and be very specific and share what you already know. Don't confine your queries to the procedural; seek out what makes your new workplace tick. Try and find out the subtle issues of the organization whether its employees are dependent on Instant Messaging (IM) or comfortable with the email? Study and make your own dossier of who does what in your organization .
Take time before taking up new job
Don't just jump into a new job right after leaving your last. Spend some time doing the tasks you always meant to do. Take at least a week before you join the new one.
Do a little work
Along with your work plan, spend a couple of hours or a day doing something that will benefit your new company. This way, you have already accomplished something before you even started.
Never Alienate Coworker
Asking too many questions too soon can alienate coworkers and superiors. Before you need to ask too many question you should develop the capacity to absorb all the answers. Of course legitimate questions have to be asked as early and often possible and this will make people see you as harmless and curious.
As you move past the first stage of your tenure in a new position, consider giving back to your company's next generation by volunteering to put together documentation of key information whether it's a company glossary, a guidebook or an intranet page that indexes internal resources.
Asking for help may be discouraging as some friction could be generated. But the fact is asking questions were not meant just for yourself, but to advance the goals of the organization. In the long run your effort wil turn out to be worth your while.