For some MPs though, the newly elected ones, the past fortnight has been a hive of activity as they come face-to-face with the sudden realisation that life as normal ceased to exist on the night of October 14.
Waitaki MP Miles Anderson - actually, officially, he is a "qualifying electoral candidate" until he is sworn in - is not entirely unfamiliar with Parliament.
The Southburn farmer is a former Federated Farmers board member and was chairman of its Meat and Wool Industry Group, so he has been in the big buildings several times in the past, pitching a case to MPs, but he has quickly discovered that it is a whole new board game on the other side of the desk.
"It is certainly going to be quite a change ... I was expecting everything to be different, and it is, so it’s not been much of a surprise," he said.
"There is just so much to learn, that is going to be the challenge, around parliamentary procedures and all those sorts of things. It will take a full year, I would think, to become comfortable with the way that everything works.
"Currently, I’m pinching myself every day and I hope that feeling remains for as long as I am the representative of the Waitaki."
There are myriad things to sort out: parliamentary offices, electorate offices, staffing, the likely sitting programme for the rest of the year - that will depend on when, and whether, PM-elect Christopher Luxon can advise Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro that he can form a government, but he has said that he intends MPs to be working right up until Christmas.
Then there the million and one things that MPs need to know, such as what is and what is not a parliamentary expense, what privileges they do and do not have, and what they can and cannot say.
"I am very lucky to have someone like [former MP] Jacqui Dean to lean on, and also the office staff that she had as well, who are going to be really important in the transition between Jacqui and myself," Mr Anderson said.
"She has been very helpful and is only a phone call away, which is really good."
None of the new MPs have offices allocated as yet. That process will start once Parliamentary Services knows not only how many MPs each party has, but also which of their MPs might need ministerial accommodation.
Like Mr Anderson, Taieri Green list MP Scott Willis has been to Parliament several times on lobbying missions, or to visit MPs from all parties.
"I had been to Bellamy’s before, but the induction week was certainly a different thing," he said.
"I was dead keen, got there nice and early on the Monday, was through all the paperwork by 10.30 and went up to the Green’s offices and caught up with the team."
Portfolio allocation is still some way away. Historically, the Green’s caucus has grown after special votes are counted, but an eager Mr Willis has already got some priority areas, mostly in his professional field of energy, that he would like to advance.
"There are also three MPs that have come out of the Taieri [him, New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson and Labour MP Ingrid Leary] and I also think there is an ability for us to work together on how we can make sure that we represent the South well."
For Todd Stephenson, Act New Zealand’s Queenstown-based list MP, this too, is not entirely unfamiliar territory: he has previously worked as a parliamentary staffer for the party.
"I found it really energising and exciting," he said.
"The induction process went very smoothly and since then it’s been about learning a bit more about what it’s going to be like to be an MP ... I have been more involved with interacting with Parliament from the corporate side, or from my days of being an adviser, but it is a bit different when you are on the other side. You have to be a parliamentarian and be part of that decision-making process."
When he and Act’s four new MPs sat in the House for the first time, the realisation started to sink in that his new role was for real, Mr Stephenson said.
"Now we’re just waiting for the final numbers to be tallied and then things will take shape from there."
Home away from home
One issue for both Mr Stephenson and Mr Willis - and Mr Patterson for that matter - will be what kind of bricks-and-mortar presence, if any, that they want to have in the region that they represent from the list.
An electorate office is more than hubris, it is tangible evidence that an MP lives locally, and a focus both for them to engage with their community and for their party to have as a centre of operations.
Mr Willis is keen to reopen a Green office as a party southern HQ, but it will need regional and national approval before any such facility opens.
Mr Stephenson, likewise, is keen for an Act regional presence, although the sheer scale of the Southland electorate he lives in, let along the surrounding electorates he will likely also take an interest in, means that the party may well take a more creative approach to how it fulfills that need.
We’ve been here before
Thanks to reader Ross Linklater for a reminder that the looming Port Waikato by-election is not a unique situation, and that there is recent southern experience of the - thankfully little used - requirement that a by-election be held if an candidate dies during the campaign.
During the 1957 election the Labour candidate for Clutha, Bruce Waters, was involved in a serious car crash, which prompted his rivals to immediately suspend their campaigns. Mr Waters died three days later, on November 29 - the day before the election - meaning that a by-election for Clutha was held on January 18. James Roy, the incumbent National MP, retained his seat.
