Here's what would be cool
30/9/10 12:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsWhat would be cool is if, during the training sessions where "Norm" inflicts his knowledge on me, everyone I know would email me or text me.
That way, I'd know that there's a shiny reward waiting for me at the end of the boredom. And I could at least watch my phone light up and see the little number appear on my gMail tab.
It would have helped during the 90-minute session I just survived. My attention gave out at the 45-minute mark, so there was "Norm," once again flushing perfectly good time down the toilet, neither of us accomplishing anything during the second 45 minutes.
As my attention wandered and I began asking scattershot questions, he became vaguely defensive and said several times how swamped he is and how impossible it is for him to get everything done, and how he'll be giving me this task and that task...
...followed by several minutes' discussion of this task and that task, and future things that haven't happened yet, and past things that I don't need knowledge of to do the job.
I was so edgy by the end of it that if I were slightly younger and just a wee bit less able to mind my tongue, I'd've almost certainly said a few regrettable and undeserved things to him.
As it was, I said, "I need these sessions to be shorter. I can't learn anything after 45 minutes, and half an hour would be better."
He agreed, reluctantly, so...progress, of a sort. Though it means I'll have to do this every single day instead of twice a week.
That way, I'd know that there's a shiny reward waiting for me at the end of the boredom. And I could at least watch my phone light up and see the little number appear on my gMail tab.
It would have helped during the 90-minute session I just survived. My attention gave out at the 45-minute mark, so there was "Norm," once again flushing perfectly good time down the toilet, neither of us accomplishing anything during the second 45 minutes.
As my attention wandered and I began asking scattershot questions, he became vaguely defensive and said several times how swamped he is and how impossible it is for him to get everything done, and how he'll be giving me this task and that task...
...followed by several minutes' discussion of this task and that task, and future things that haven't happened yet, and past things that I don't need knowledge of to do the job.
I was so edgy by the end of it that if I were slightly younger and just a wee bit less able to mind my tongue, I'd've almost certainly said a few regrettable and undeserved things to him.
As it was, I said, "I need these sessions to be shorter. I can't learn anything after 45 minutes, and half an hour would be better."
He agreed, reluctantly, so...progress, of a sort. Though it means I'll have to do this every single day instead of twice a week.
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(no subject)
30/9/10 20:08 (UTC)(no subject)
30/9/10 20:13 (UTC)He means well. He's not stupid. He's not a bad guy. Just very, very different from me. I am not, for one thing, a Certified Public Accountant.
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1/10/10 06:32 (UTC)No-one can take in information for 90 mins solid. And my experience is that I only really learn new tasks by doing them for real, consulting manuals or asking for advice when I get stuck.
(no subject)
1/10/10 06:53 (UTC)I learn just the way you describe. Norm actually learns by reading manuals and documents, and I think he honestly believes it's the best way for everyone.
Seriously, next to him I feel like Sherlock, all "Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing," because next to him I'm totally scattershot and meteoric.
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1/10/10 07:32 (UTC)Oh my. I would probably have died of impatience by this point. I'm sure it's possible; I've certainly come close a time or two.
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1/10/10 22:38 (UTC)(no subject)
2/10/10 06:44 (UTC)(no subject)
2/10/10 06:50 (UTC)Norm's communication/teaching style isn't really the whole problem in this scenario: the greater issue, I'm realizing, is my feeling of overwhelm in general at being asked to take on a job that takes Norm fully 50 hours a week to do, while continuing to be responsible for the job I already have.
It's coming home to me how untenable and really scary the situation is, because my employer can expect me to work very long hours, and I'm extremely unwilling to do that because I can feel my life trickling out in The World's Tallest Basement...
Gah! What you say is true, though: I can and will set a training standard that I can learn from. I don't think it's beyond Norm's reach. Thank you for the perspective.
(no subject)
2/10/10 07:11 (UTC)One note of hope: if Norm is a manual-reader and a droner who lacks imagination etc etc, then the chances are high that he is also someone who takes twice as long as necessary to his job. In my experience that type lacks the perspective to make judgements about cost/benefit or materiality, and lacks the imagination to invent new and more efficient ways to achieve the objective.
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2/10/10 07:19 (UTC)Men like Norm, workaholics with accounting degrees, have almost always been (or rapidly risen) above me in the hierarchies where I've worked, so it's natural for me to believe that their work style is actually superior to mine--that their actions make them meritorious. Maybe it really has been nothing but external genitalia all along.
(no subject)
2/10/10 07:41 (UTC)(no subject)
2/10/10 07:51 (UTC)(no subject)
1/10/10 09:48 (UTC)*snort*
God, he sounds awful. Tell me - what's his vocal range? About five semitones?
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1/10/10 22:35 (UTC)(no subject)
2/10/10 00:38 (UTC)But seriously, I'm sorry time with him is such a pain. I imagine you as a cat with its fur being rubbed the wrong way.
(no subject)
2/10/10 00:43 (UTC)I feel sure that in some shape or form, there's story material, though.