When I started my first legal job a couple years ago, I realized that all the questions I wanted to ask about how to not be Awkward Allison weren't easily Googleable. As a former shy kid with a personality that wins you over in the third act, meeting a bunch of new people who have control over my employment wouldn't make my list of Favorite Things. I adore and surround myself with those people who enter a room radiating warmth, intelligence, and charisma. Now, I will tell you that I am kind, but I am also tightly wound. I have learned through my years that when I sit down at tables, I should push the knives away so I don't elbow said knives and send them flying across the room. That's the kinda energy that comes naturally to me. The problem is that, perhaps through my southern upbringing, people don't look at me and peg me as anxious. People like me (and maybe you) are called ducks: all the fury goes on underwater, up top, we're cruisin'.

I say all of this to make the point that, if you are anxious about your new job, but have clearly danced well enough to get in the door, those minor flubs you make in the beginning usually aren't attributed to endaring first-day-jitters. Instead, you can come off as unprepared, bitchy, or, most likely in the cases I think of for myself, stupid.

I figured I'd put these down for any Lady Girl (or dude) new to the corporate world who wants to get through the first few weeks without texting their mom, "WHAT DO I DO?!."

Some of this might seem painfully obvious, but we all start somewhere, right?

1. Who the Hell Are All of You?

I have found that I have an amazing talent for thinking about anything other than a person's name when they are introducing themselves to me.

Me: Nice to meet you!

Them: Hi, welcome aboard, my name . . .

Me: Cool. How old is she? Is she a law student too? I wonder if she and I are going to be best friends. Or learn all these things together. Or maybe I'll get fired next week. I hope I don't get fired next week.

Them: So anyway, see you soon, Paige!

Me: OH FACK I don't know her name

First of all, I've learned that there isn't much of a cure for what I'll call the Pooh Bears. Silly old Bear, remember your names!

But here's what you can do:

First of all, remind yourself to pay attention during introductions. Duh.

Second of all, the second you hear some names, write them down once you get back to your desk. Even if you think you're remembering wrong, if you can remember what it starts with, better to say later, "I apologize, did you say your name is Anna? Oh, Andy! Okay, got it, nice to meet you again Andy!

Another reminder --- you probably have a phone list at your desk, right? Yesss. If your office is around ten people, this is a magical treasure that will help you. Pro tip: don't start calling the names on the list "just to check if the phone works." Tempting though.

2. Knock Knock

Let's say you have a question for someone who has their door closed. You don't know what kind of person they are, at all. Everyone tells you not to worry about wasting people's time to be assertive, but I've had different bosses with a variety of reactions to me knocking on the door. The last thing you want to do is annoy anyone at work, but, I mean, you gotta get this question answered.

Before I launch into how to deal with this awkwardness, know that it's totally fine to ask someone after you get a job (or maybe even during your interview): "If I have a question while I'm working on a project, how do you prefer that I approach you?" Some partners will call people on the phone 5 feet away from them. Other partners expect you to walk up flights of stairs to ask them the most basic questions. It's all taste, so you should ask. That said, usually the response to this question won't give you the exact question you need. Though I've had some bosses explicitly say, "If my door is closed, do not hesitate to come in, you are never bothering me." Whereas I've had some bosses bark "WHAT" when I walk in and the door is open.

First, before you even knock on that door, ask yourself if you've exhausted your options for finding your answer in a reasonable amount of time. Obviously, you could probably find the answer to any question you have, given enough time. At the same time, you're billing the client, and don't want to bill when you could use comparative advantage and get someone else to give you an answer in two minutes.

So: (1) make sure you have clearly formed what the question you have is (in addition to any follow up questions, like why you need it, what EXACTLY you are doing this for, etc.); (2) have a clear, concise answer for the work you've done thus far on your hunt. Remember that your job is to save everyone's time here --- your boss's, the client's, and, least importantly, yours.

Alright. Now you aren't knocking on the door and flailing about uselessly. Good. So how do you do it?

The door is closed. If you can, ask a secretary or someone who you are not bothering whether this person is on the phone. Assuming they aren't, knock twice, assertively. If you're going to knock, knock. Don't half ass it. Because if you do someone might ask if you fainted against the door and you will never be able to live that down. Ahem.

Now you've knocked, open the door, first things first, look at that person's face. Do they seem freaked out? They're just chilling? On the phone?

If it looks like they're playing solitaire or something, go ahead and ask how it's going, and tell them you have a question.

If they're on the phone, they'll either signal for you to sit down, or look really busy. If they look stressed on the phone, do that thing where you don't say anything but you basically say, "Hey, I had a question, I can come back later."

If they wave you off while they're on the phone, honestly, I don't know what you could have done better and if any Emily Post types do, I would LOVE them to share with me. I think the best way to salvage this situation is to write them an email with your question in which you say, "Dear X, I apologize for the distraction, I didn't realize you were on the phone! I'm working on XYZ and had a question, BLA HBLAH QUESTION. Is there a time you're available to talk about this today? I'm thinking about doing XYZ to find the answer . . ."

If they're not on the phone but seem busy, say, "I have a question, should take X minutes, is now a good time?"

Finally, make sure you bring your notepad into the room when this happens.

3. Meet Your New Best Friend: The Secretary

You should treat every single person you ever meet as if they are equally important to each other, simply because this is a good thing to do. I don't know what else there is to say about that.

Yet people regularly treat their secretaries like crap.

This is beyond the farthest reaches of stupidity I could even imagine for myself. In my darkest day, I will not abuse my secretary.

Why? Because of the reason I listed above. This is reason enough, people!

Why else?

Because, titles aside, your secretary is the second most important person at your firm. The first is the client.

Secretaries are the bomb because they get all the formalities, they get the interpersonal minutiae, they know who likes their coffee in what way, they just. get. it.

A good secretary will tell you what you need to know to hit the ground running. He or she knows how to file things, she knows all the things that you should know but don't. If you treat her (I'm gonna go with her because I've never had a male secretary) right, she'll anticipate your needs and recognize when you have broccoli in your teeth, metaphorically speaking. Even if she doesn't do that, trust me, there is going to come a time when she can either go home on time, or she can put out a fire for your ass. She will be able to do either and keep her job.

I have been in this exact situation, though not a secretary at the time, and let me tell you. At that point, I had a boss who had seemingly gone out of his way to treat me like I was stupid all day. After accusing me multiple times of not knowing how to alphabetize (when, as I would try to explain to him, he was actually misreading some files), he instructed me to get working on a task at 7 P.M. after I had stayed to help him fix something he had done wrong.

Do you know which project I completed without my usual Smithian ferocity? Yeah.

Do not abuse and lean too heavily on your secretary, unless you own this firm and you pay her a handsome salary.

Thank her profusely every single time she goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Know all her special days and celebrate them with her.

4. Your Second Best Friend Is Your Legal Pad

This is what happens when you run back and write things down.

Going in to ask a question? Bring the legal pad.

Pick up the phone? Get out your legal pad.

Dropping off some copies with a partner? Bring the pad.

Bathroom break? Don't bring the pad don't be stupid.

Any time you're presenting yourself with an opportunity for someone to give you an assignment, you'd better have your pen and your pad on you. Yeah, you might look silly carrying that thing around everywhere you go, when other people don't, but once I got into the practice of bringing my pad everywhere I realized that gone were the days of me nodding my head during a meeting, repeating names/phrases in that head, and then scurrying off to my desk to regurgitate what had just happened and ultimately reach the conclusion that I had no idea what the F had just happened.

5. When Do I Eat?

Whenever, obviously, but I've noticed different firms have different ways of doing things. Some firms expect all the cohorts to go eat lunch together. Sometimes firms treat. Some firms will literally never treat and get angry when you take five minutes to gargle down your soylent.

The first few days, bring a lunch and play it out. If someone invites you to lunch, go with them, no matter what. Leave your soup in the fridge, eat it later. No such thing as #nonewfriends at your #newjob unless you want to be the #officebitch.

Ideally, I think it's best to eat on your boss's schedule. While she's eating and zoning out, you are too, so it's not awkward if she's sitting there thinking through a problem and comes and asks you what's what while you're reading Gawker with peanut butter all over your face.

That said, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you can't eat when you want to. It's perfectly respectable to take thirty minutes (or an hour) to eat your lunch at any time from 11:30-3:00. You do you.

If you have a workout routine during that period, that should be fine, but people should know where you are. Typically, bosses shouldn't get upset at you spending your time in a reasonable way as long as it's predictable. Maybe they'll have a client call at noon one day that they need you for five minutes before. They can't find you. That's not great. But you can prevent that by asking your first few days, "Does anyone leave the office to work out? Yeah, I usually do spin around lunch hour. Does that work? I want to make sure I'm here if you have meetings or take calls from 12-1:30."

6. The Best You Can Be is Reasonable

There are so many things I'm not covering here, but my ultimate take-home is this: be predictable, be reasonable, be conscientious.

Who is this lady you're looking at now? Why, that's Karen, my mom. Why did I put up a blurry picture of my mom here? #1: She's awesome. When I was in second grade, I wore a blue and white glitter seashell outfit, matching shirt and shorts. That's not relevant. While wearing that, I skateboarded down the Big Hill in my neighborhood. Was going too fast, bailed, tore my knee up real nice. Climbed back up the hill and waited to start crying until my mom saw me. My mom was an ER nurse at the time. "I'm not working today. If you want stitches I'm giving them to you here at home." I opted out. Now I have a scar that burns whenever the stock market is down. Point is, my mom is a BAMF and always knows what to do. Which brings me to reason #2: Karen always knows what to do.

When in doubt, Karen out. What would Karen do? Karen would have her sh!@t straight and do her own research before wasting anyone's time. She would be most critical of her own work and eager to learn how the office super stars accomplish theirs. Karen knows her ABCs: Always Be Closing, and she watches those Ps and Qs, Is and Ts, like an angry, hangry hawk. But even Karen told me once that starting a new job is awkward for everyone. When I confided in her that I didn't know how to say "I don't know what's going on at all" in a professional way, she told me she had the same experience when she started at her most recent office.

Point is, you're going to F up and do weird things. We all do, even Karen, even if she only does it to make the rest of us feel better. I have a habit of laughing when I don't hear or understand what someone has just said. That is NOT a good habit and trust me, I am not the only person who has noticed it. I can't help it. Other than that, I'd like to think that my North Star for navigating awkwardness is trying my best to help out and putting everything below my most baseline needs (I will be compensated at the rate we agreed upon, you will not demean me, I will have an ample supply of post-it notes) second to the Team. If you are reading this because you have just had the most awkward first week from hell, hey, look at this as an opportunity. I firmly believe that the skill you should have to be an asset to your team is your ability to adapt quickly. If you go in there and make everyone feel uncomfortable the first week, and the second week are Normal Nancy, and the third week are Get-Along-With-Everyone-Gretta, you're golden.

Good luck, and if you want to post an inaugural comment on your thoughts on awkwardness, be my guest.