The 12th Day and 32 Percent Wasted

The cursor blinks. It’s 8:02 AM on a Tuesday, and I am staring at a login screen that refuses to acknowledge my existence. This is my 12th day on the job, and I have spent approximately 32 percent of my waking hours either waiting for a password reset or trying to find the one person in the building who knows where the ‘General Marketing’ folder is hidden. I’m Ethan D., and in my world as a museum education coordinator, if I left a patron to wander the archives without a map, I’d be fired. But in the corporate world? This is called ‘getting up to speed.’

I just accidentally closed 82 browser tabs. Every single one of them was a half-read PDF about compliance, a Slack thread where someone promised to send me a link, or a Jira ticket that hasn’t been updated since 2022. The digital clutter mirrors the physical paralysis of my first morning. I sat at a mahogany-veneered desk with a brand-new laptop that smelled like sterile plastic and possibility. I had my email. I had my HR portal. But I didn’t have the software license required to actually do the job I was hired for. I spent the next 52 hours writing emails to people I didn’t know, asking for permission to be productive. It’s a bizarre form of professional gaslighting.

The Interpretive Gap

In the museum, we call this the ‘interpretive gap.’ If a visitor stands before a 12th-century ceramic bowl and there’s no label, no context, and no lighting, they don’t feel ’empowered’ to discover its meaning. They feel stupid. They feel like they don’t belong in the room. Why do we think a new hire feels any different when they can’t find the 2nd-floor printer or the link to the company’s brand guidelines? We’ve created a culture where ‘figuring it out’ is a badge of honor, when it’s actually just a symptom of organizational rot.

The Weight of Unresolved Friction

I remember one specific afternoon, about 42 minutes before I was supposed to lead a tour of the new Renaissance wing. I realized I didn’t have the key to the staff elevator. I asked the security lead, who told me to ask the facilities manager, who told me to file a request through a portal that I didn’t have access to because I hadn’t been ‘vetted’ for the elevator module yet. I ended up carrying 22 heavy brochures up three flights of stairs, sweating through my dress shirt. The tour went fine, but the resentment stayed. That resentment is the silent killer of retention. It’t the ‘broken window’ theory applied to human resources. If the company can’t even give me a key, why should I give them my best ideas?

True curation is the act of removing friction. It is the art of saying, ‘I have prepared this path for you so that you can focus on the thing that matters.’

– Ethan D. (The Curator’s View)

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In a museum, that’s the art. In a company, that’s the work. But we’ve flipped it. We make the ‘path’ the hardest part of the job, and the ‘work’ becomes a secondary concern that we squeeze into the gaps between bureaucratic troubleshooting.

If you want to see what a truly curated introduction looks like, something that respects the complexity of the craft while welcoming the newcomer, you should look at how the experts handle bottles like Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year Old, where the journey from novice to enthusiast is paved with intentionality rather than hurdles. They understand that the first sip-or the first day-sets the tone for the entire relationship. If that first experience is bitter and unguided, the chance of a second encounter drops by 72 percent.

The Hidden Curriculum

And let’s talk about the ‘license’ problem. I’m still waiting for that software key. It’s been 12 days. I’ve reached out to the IT desk 2 times. They told me my request is ‘in the queue.’ I’m currently using a personal trial version of the software, paying for it out of my own pocket, just so I can meet my deadlines. … If I provide the labor, you provide the infrastructure. When the infrastructure is missing, the contract is breached.

I once spent 2 hours explaining to a museum donor why we couldn’t just ‘hang the painting’ the day it arrived. We treat inanimate objects with more care than we treat new employees. We expect a human to walk into a fluorescent-lit room, sit in a chair that hasn’t been adjusted for their height, and immediately start generating ‘value’ while their digital credentials are still stuck in a server in Delaware.

Vanity Disguised as ‘Culture’

Perhaps the most contrarian view I hold is that a bad onboarding process is actually an act of organizational vanity. It’s a way for the ‘old guard’ to maintain power by gatekeeping information. ‘Oh, you don’t know how to use the expense reporter? Let me show you how we’ve always done it.’ It creates a hierarchy of knowledge that has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with tenure. It’s the corporate equivalent of hazing, disguised as ‘organic integration.’

Value the Entry, Secure the Future

I’m going to go find that software license today, even if I have to walk into the IT closet myself. But I shouldn’t have to. No one should have to. We need to stop romanticizing the ‘scavenger hunt’ and start valuing the ‘curated entry.’ We need to realize that if the first promise we make to an employee-the promise that they will have what they need to succeed-is broken in the first 122 minutes, we shouldn’t be surprised when they stop caring by the 12th month.

Is it possible that we are afraid of being ready? If a new hire is perfectly onboarded, they have no excuses. They have to perform. Maybe we keep the scavenger hunt alive because it gives us a buffer. But the tape is peeling. And I’m tired of looking for the roll.