Fellow trainer resigns

[blas]

No, she didn't quit.....but she stepped down as a trainer and demoted herself back to an operator. Guess why?

Same reason I am considering the same.....*drumroll*.....a bad review! Yes, despite all of our efforts to accomodate boatloads of new trainees, despite our best efforts to try to help people with no work ethic, despite all of our attempts to do the best we can with what we have..........ALL of us trainers got less than perfect reviews.

I guess I should have noticed....she was almost on fire Friday morning. Now her job is posted up for anyone who wants it.

I'm still enraged after losing points on my review because of DipShit and the room runners.

Another trainer is also irate because of being blamed for losing trainees who had no work ethic!

All 3 of us each have a somewhat different situation, but it mostly ends up the same: We were not given the credit we were due for how we handled 6+ months of non-stop hiring and non-stop temps.......my story is a little different because it involved DipShit the Impossible and the room runners trying to force me to do hot product and getting angry with me about not being able to do it.

[marasbaras]

That royally sucks.

What industry are you in?

[blas]

Manufacturing. There was talks like last of me and the other trainer resigning as well. That way someone else who could put up with such blame could have the job. We're not going to suffer any more bad reviews simply because of "hiring issues". And we're not going to be held responsible for it.

[The Gatekeeper]

That's the thing about reviews, they are never perfect. I have been dinged for the absolutely most petty things on reviews. The idea is to identify the areas that need work. What I find is that the people who give the reviews don't know how to communicate that, so it often time seems like a personal attack.

Well in the case of one of my managers, it probably is. But then again I currently have 3 bosses. Kind of makes review time a joke, in my opinion.

[blas]

I don't think anyone expects a perfect review. But I do recall upon being promoted as a trainer, being made aware of the high turnover, and being told that there's nothing we can personally do to prevent people from quitting or not showing up....etc etc. What the other trainer was dinged for.

The boss seeks feedback from the room runners for our reviews. The fact of the matter is that the two room runners gave bad feedback about me regarding DipShit. I don't know what was said, but I was docked points for it. It makes me wonder...."Well, you fired him, so obviously you didn't see any future with him either!"....so why would they blame ME for that inept fool?

I don't want to sound selfish, but if people like DipShit are going to cost me my reputation as a hard worker and a person who doesn't give up, then I must step down as well and just worry about myself and myself alone.

[Sylvia727]

I don't want to sound selfish, but if people like DipShit are going to cost me my reputation as a hard worker and a person who doesn't give up, then I must step down as well and just worry about myself and myself alone.

First you take care of yourself. Then you take care of anyone else. It's not selfish at all. You can't help anyone if you're in trouble yourself. Remember, on airplanes you're supposed to put on your own oxygen mask first, then your child's. You won't do your child any good if you pass out while helping him. Along the same lines, you can't help anyone there if you get fired/forced to quit. Get yourself onto stable ground before you worry about your coworkers.

[Broomjockey]

Not to sound like a jackass, but:

You are a trainer. No DUH your trainees are going to reflect on you. That's going to be the main thing they evaluate you on. You're also not going to get perfect reviews, ever, because your position by its very definition relies on the performance of other people. If you get stuck with a bad trainee, of course it isn't your fault, but you still have to deal with the effects of it.

[blas]

Yes, and in the aftermath of DipShit and all the shit that's splattered, I do not blame the other trainer for stepping down, and am seriously considering it myself.

Regardless of what anyone will say, I accept ZERO responsibility for DipShit and what happened to him. I cannot force people to learn who are unwilling to learn. I cannot force people to listen if they are unwilling.

I went into this with the wrong idea that people would understand when stuff like this happened. But no, it seems I am totally to blame, and DipShit affected my review, which is very important to me, so perhaps I should step down, and that way all I have to worry about now on is myself and how I personally perform duties and how well I work as an individual. It's really not fair to blame all the bad ones on me. Even ask me right to my face, and I'll tell you, I accept no responsibility for DipShit and people like him.

[Talon]

Begging your pardon Broomjockey, but like Blas said, DS refused to learn. It was up to management to take further corrective measures (write-ups, firing), but between them and the temp agency, there was a lot of foot-dragging. But is anyone on the management staff going to get a pink slip for failing to weed out DS sooner? Of course not. The bad review has nothing to do with Blas and everything to do with the SRDH principle: Shit Rolls Down Hill.

[Sylvia727]

How can you see the quality of blas's training in someone who refuses to learn? You can't see the quality of someone's artwork on a mangled canvas, and you can't see the quality of someone's typing on a dead computer. If DipShit was just slow, then his training should count against her, because she couldn't handle different speeds of learning. But he was actively resisting her every effort. A competant manager wouldn't consider that a factor, because a competant manager would know that reviews are supposed to judge factors relevant to the job assignment. No one could train DipShit, so DipShit was untrainable, so his results should be thrown out no matter who his trainer was.

[Broomjockey]

Begging your pardon Broomjockey, but like Blas said, DS refused to learn.

How can you see the quality of blas's training in someone who refuses to learn?

Have either of you been in training positions? I have. And I know it doesn't actually matter the quality of trainees you get, you're going to get judged on them no matter what. Also, part of it is how you treat them even after you've deemed them untrainable. Technically, management could see Blas's treatment of DS afterwards as unprofessional and bitchy. But only because you would have to be Mother Teresa to NOT treat him like that, he was such a half-witted dumbass. However, for that excellent review, you HAVE to be Mother Teresa. A lot of managers have unrealistic expectations for reviews like that.

When I was the closer at my theatre, I was dinged for having too many manager-input swipe-outs in the system. The problem is, the managers HAD to put the swipe in manually because I didn't finish closing until half an hour after they finished payroll for the night. Didn't matter come review time though, I still lost 5% on my review.

Remember, I'm not telling how it should be. I'm telling it how it is in most places. Employees get held responsible for things outside their control, and management will come up with a way to justify it, such as my "unprofessional" comment above. We all know Blas did everything humanly possible with him. But it still counts against her. Sucks, yes. But until she gets to be the manager, it's going to continue.

[Sylvia727]

Remember, I'm not telling how it should be. I'm telling it how it is in most places.

Well, there's my problem. I trained the new hires at my bakery, and if they refused to learn, my manager bounced them to a different station, or even fired them if they had a bad attitude. She didn't take any shit (even honest mistakes, so it was a two-edged sword). I suppose having someone who understood where the trainer left off and where the trainee began gave me a biased view of normalcy.

Either way, it sucks for you, blas. Have you made a decision yet?

[blas]

Myself and the other trainer are still considering it. We don't get an awful lot of time to talk in private and away from everyone else.

For now, we're waiting until the next trainer meeting, we're going to bring up the on-going war with the room runners, we're going to bring up reviews and how we are getting dinged for people like DS, etc etc. We're going to put it out in the open, without bitching or going into too much detail on our personal reviews (because that's private).

It's just a difference in work places. At the gas station, my manager never dinged me or blamed me for people who never showed up or the girl that stole. She knew she couldn't blame me for it. But now I work at a huge company.....with a boss with really high expectations....and he expects miracles with people like DS.

[Sylvia727]

It will be interesting to see how your boss responds to a united front, particularly with one resignation already and the implied consequence of several more resigning. Keep us updated. Good luck!

[blas]

Last night was the last straw. One of the room runners got pushy with me again, and I said "I am busy training right now" and he said "Well I don't care, you do what I say!" and I replied "I have a job to do, too. My number one priority is training. I'm not going to let you get in the way of me making sure these people get the best training they can." (he was trying to pull me away from my trainees to do stuff for him)

Then he said "You really disappoint me."

I answered, "You disappoint me, too."

I'm sorry to all my trainees......(save for DS), I really enjoy training people, I really enjoy showing people how to do stuff, I really enjoy helping out......but if I have to also risk the quality of training because some asswipe on an ego trip thinks he can try to pull me away from them....I gotta go......I'm speaking with the other trainer tonight and letting him know what happened last night.

Just for the record, no, this guy is not my boss. This is part of "the war". Room runners are always trying to boss around the trainers and pull them away from trainees. Then on the other hand, they flip out if we leave our trainees for 5 minutes to print some stuff off for them. They are just being idiots.