Forced To Volunteer

Or being “volun-told”, as I’ve also heard it referred to.

Christina, my supervisor, told me on Friday that management is looking to force me and other seasoned workers in the office to help train and offer shadowing opportunities for the dozen-plus new hires that currently plague our building.  This sort of thing had to be implemented because hardly anyone is taking these new hires out and showing them the proverbial ropes.  This means that there are usually a bunch of new hires sitting in the office, not doing shit or anything even remotely related to the job itself.  There are only so many training modules one can complete on the computer.  I guess some in-the-field training would probably be more beneficial.

Now, it looks like management is looking to force the new hires on us and as much as I want to complain about it, Christina says I can’t.  Actually, let me clarify that.  I can complain all I want.  In the end though, complaining, whining, and bitching changes nothing.  I’m stuck.  Christina’s stuck.  The other seasoned, though reluctant workers in the office, are stuck.  We are helpless.  I thought I was the only person in the office who had taken such a stand and made it clear that they want nothing to do with the training process.  It would appear that I was not.

I used to be open to training new hires years ago.  Back then, I was one of the few who didn’t mind, but now, many years later, I have stopped caring.  I just stopped giving a shit and I have no more fucks to give.  I think I just want to be left alone, left to do my job on my own, without having to explain every damn move and step I make to someone who may not even be paying attention.  I’m just not in that teaching mood anymore.  I mean, yes, I’ve been training Serena these last few months, but I’ve started to question her willingness to work with me and even the extent to which she can maintain even minimal communication with me.  She can’t even give me a copy of her updated training schedule, which I would have never thought was such a difficult task.

I had become jaded with the job several years ago, though not to the point where I can’t do the job anymore.  I have just reached a point where I no longer have any interest in teaching it to anyone else.  There is already a dedicated group of people in our office who are responsible for training these new people.  Why can’t they do this shit themselves?  Why are the now intruding upon and interrupting my day?  What are they doing all day?

So, as it currently stands, Christina says I have to dedicate at least one day a week (half day at that, if I choose) to allow someone to shadow me and that I don’t have any say as to who the person shadowing me will be.  I suppose that’s just as well because I don’t know most of them anyway.  The minute she said “half day”, I figured that I could go along with that.  I’ll gladly take a half day over a full day, any day.  I may not have much control over this situation, but damn, I think I can devote two hours a day each week for the entire month of October to help train the new hires.  In my head though, rest assured that I’ll be complaining, though in silence.

I have little faith in many, if not all, of the new hires.  I don’t know why that is.  I truly doubt that the majority of them will be around at the end of 2024 anyway.  That’s just kind of the pattern at work and it’s been like this for years.  People come in.  They do the training for nine months.  They become official and are actually doing the job.  They soon discover that they hate it.  They leave.  Months later, that whole process repeats with the next training class.  It really is comical to see the pattern repeat the way it does and it never fails.  The retention rate is very poor.  I don’t have any numbers or figures I can cite, but know that retention is terrible.

This is why I keep to myself.  I do my job.  The new hires spend nearly a year learning theirs.  Very rarely do our paths cross.  Now, I’m being forced to train people and it sucks.  Our paths are now being forced to cross.

I know that Christina fought hard to prevent this eventuality.  In the end, it doesn’t matter.

I’m being forced to train people and it sucks.