Here's why the first day of work makes you want to crawl under your desk and die

You did it! After months of applying for jobs and nerve-wracking interviews, you landed your first job! Now comes the hard part – your first day.

As it approaches, the first-day jitters take over. It’s understandable. You don’t know exactly what to expect or what’s expected of you. You want to make a good impression. You want to bring your A game.

Know that you’re not alone – and you will likely have to navigate a handful of first-day landmines throughout your career. The average 50-something person has held 11.7 jobs from age 18 to 48, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and nearly half of these jobs were held from ages 18 to 24.

So you’ve got your first-day outfit laid out the night before (and it better be the right one because you agonized over that perfect dress/pants/shirt/tie for the last 72 hours). You go to bed extra early to make sure you’re well rested. You set your alarm and check three times that it’s AM, not PM. You’ve got your commute all mapped out. You. Are. Ready.

But somehow, no matter how much planning and deliberating you do ahead of time, your first day at a new job can turn out to be one big awkward moment.

You get to your office with a big friendly smile planted on your face, which you hope is doing an adequate job of distracting everyone from your nervous forehead sweat. First order of business – get past the fact that the office dress code is just a touch more forgiving than you thought. You realize your new colleagues are probably more comfortable in their jeans and Chuck Taylors than you are in your new suit.

The rest of the day is spent getting your picture taken for your work ID, setting up your phone voicemail (it only takes you 45 minutes to figure out how it works), trying not to hang up on anyone, trying not to bump into anyone in the elevator, forgetting your co-workers’ names 30 seconds after you’ve been introduced, creating an un-memorizable computer password, wondering if your boss knows you’re even there, and staring at the fancy office coffee machine because you’re too afraid to try to make a cup.

And let’s not forget the new employee orientation. It’s a bewildering two hours spent listening to the HR rep bombard you with information about payroll, 401(k) contributions and an alphabet soup of health insurance plans: HMO, PPO, OAP, QPOS, HSA, HRA, … What does it all MEAN?!

But more importantly, when’s quitting time?