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The First Week Survey

A surveyor's field sheet for the first week somewhere new — a new job, a new city, a new flat, a new team. It isn't a list of things to do. It's a record of what was strange while it was still strange, because week one is the only week you can see a place clearly and you will never get that vantage back. A datum strip runs across the top holding the one line you cannot write later: what you assumed before you arrived. Below it, a traverse of five dated observations, each classified against a fixed legend of four — sign, smell, rule, person — with the boxes printed empty when you'd rather mark them by hand. Down the right-hand rail sit the bench marks: the things that already feel normal after seven days, which is the fastest evidence there is of how quickly a place absorbs you. At the foot of the rail, under a tear line, a short note addressed to whoever you are in six months. The sheet scores nothing and totals nothing. The single figure it prints is how many observations you left unclassified, because an unclassified note is usually one you haven't decided how you feel about yet.