I've had practice here, and was reminded of this when I ran across this thread on starting a new job. In my career, I've had far too many employers. I'd like to think it's not my fault, but after having double digit jobs, I have to take some of the blame. I've often been looking for positions that I expected to last for many years, but something always seems to crop up. Even the jobs I've loved have ended sooner than I would have liked.

As a result, I've gotten used to starting new jobs, learning a new environment, and quickly getting familiar with people and processes. I thought of this when I ran across a thread that talked asked about the first few things you should do at a new job. There are some good answers, and it's worth a read.

For those of you that start new jobs regularly, or are consultants, do you have a routine? Do you have scripts you bring along? When I saw sp_Blitz presented a few years ago, it seemed like exactly the type of thing you would want to have with you and go through on each instance you encounter. Something that gives you a good overview of how things look. While each environment is different and the configuration and settings will vary, it helps to have a view of the situation you're familiar with. Even if you don't change anything, at least you understand how the systems are set up.

There was a time when I had a complete evaluation routine similar to sp_Blitz and an install that would create jobs for backups and maintenance in a consistent way. I had more a few jobs switch to my way of managing things because it was very efficient. These days, I think I'd use tools that are tried and true, using sp_Blitz, Ola's backup routine, and @SQLFool's indexing routine. I wonder if the rest of you have similar preferences.