Night one waiting tables you drop a tray. Month three you’re carrying four plates and talking. Nobody starts there.

Competence at a physical job arrives faster than it feels like it will, and it arrives invisibly. A first shift is overwhelming because everything demands attention at once, and within a few months most of it has moved into your hands, which frees you to hold a conversation while you work. Nobody starts at the month-three version, including everybody who looks effortless now.

If you are new at something, count weeks rather than shifts and expect the first few to be rough. Ask whoever looks smoothest what their first night was like.