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You’ve glazed through the employee handbook, crammed all the important parts of your 30-60-90-day plan, and know who your manager is. So why does it still feel like everyone else knows rules that you don’t?

A manager says, “You might want to look at this again.” You hear a suggestion, but your colleagues hear a request to make major changes. The company offers flexible hours, but everyone seems to be online at the same time. The vacation policy says April is available, but nobody on the team takes time off during the busy season.

Now, none of these appear on the organizational chart or the dozens of SOPs you’ve had to read in those first few weeks. And while you can ask your office buddy questions if that’s something your workplace does, you are also left wondering who people approach for help, how feedback is delivered, or which expectations everyone assumes are obvious.

That’s because in Canada, some workplace knowledge is written down while other knowledge is implied. And some you can only learn by observing how the team works.

Knowing the difference between the two can help you ask better questions, understand indirect communication, and avoid mistakes that have little to do with your ability to do the job.

The WorkSpark’s one-page visual guide to explicit, implicit, and tacit workplace knowledge below can help you recognize the rules you can read and the ones you may need to uncover.