The Snark Chronicles

Thanks to all my friends who read my post Monday and let me know that you have faith in me. I appreciate it!

Yesterday and today were better days, for the most part. In addition to the post I did write Monday, I had planned to complain about one of my training cohort members, but then I learned something about her that explained her behavior and made me very glad I had not publicly posted my thoughts. It reminded me that all too often I make snap judgments about people and contrary to my popular belief, I am not always right.

Something I am going to post about is the trainer we have for this section of training. Our training is broken into several sections and for each section we typically have two trainers. Each section usually has two different trainers than the section before it. Up to this point I have liked all the trainers we’ve had. Then we began this week of training.

Now, I am going to preface this with the fact that I only know this trainer as a trainer. I have no idea how she is as a person outside of the training. But perhaps training is not her forte. Here are the things that are getting under my skin this week:

• She did not read our ground rules. On day one of our training we were asked to develop ground rules and each trainer was supposed to get a copy and read it. Contained in these ground rules are the fact that we have a cohort member that is allergic to citrus fruit, so of course we prohibit citrus. Also in the ground rules is that we need to limit (not eliminate) sidebar conversations. More on that later.
• She is way too authoritative. She may have been with the agency a long time, I think she said something like 16 years, but that does not mean we are not adults and don’t deserve the respect of an adult class. Some of her methods are more in line with teaching middle or high schoolers.
• She shushes us. Yes, we can get a little loud at times. We are a group of 26 people and the stuff we are discussing is not stuff you just sit back and say, “hmmm, that was interesting.” These are topics that require some processing and discussion. Being the adults we are, we realized on day one that we would need this processing and discussion and we decided a ground rule would be to limit the sidebars because eliminating was not realistic. This trainer is notorious for saying, in a derogatory tone, “Come on guys,” or just “Guuuuys” when she feels we are too loud. I don’t think I could even attempt to tell you how many times she says it in one day or how many eye rolls she gets because of it. One of our cohort members even tried to explain the ground rule to her (since she didn’t bother to read them), and she pretty much ignored her.
• She repeats things. Half an hour ago she may have gone over the physical signs you need to look for in sexually abused children. Guess what, it’s 30 minutes later and we’re going to go over the physical signs of sexual abuse again. Pretty much verbatim to what she previously said. It’s not for emphasis or making sure we get the point because she does it with little things too.
• She doesn’t attempt to find answers. In every other training we’ve had the trainers all told us to ask any question we might have. If they did not know an answer, they would find out for us. If this trainer doesn’t know an answer, she will just tell us she doesn’t know and then gloss over the fact you asked her anything.
• She hides behind a higher power. Today we needed to bring our laptops to the classroom to begin learning the state’s electronic system for data entry. This part of the training was to take place in the afternoon. Most of us got our computers out in the morning so we could figure out spacing on our tables and cord alignment. After watching a video, the trainer says to us, “What did SoSo say about computers during class?” (SoSo is one of the big dogs in the department.) She gives us all a look you would give to a 3 year old you were admonishing for stealing a cookie before dinner. “She said absolutely not,” the trainer goes on in her ‘you did a no-no’ voice. “I’ve seen people fired for it. If SoSo came in here, she would look over your shoulder, pat you on the shoulder, and take you out of here. I’ve see it done.” Um, okay whatever. I’ve seen SoSo twice since we started training and while she is a top dog who knows she is a top dog, I don’t see her firing someone for having their work-issued laptop out during a work-related training. If trainer lady didn’t want us having our laptops out during the first part of training, she simply could have said that rather than trying to threaten us with SoSo firing us.
• She says one thing and then does another. Going back to the authoritative thing, she insists on everyone raising their hands to speak. Fine, but it’s not always going to happen when you have a large group of people passionate about their work and what they are learning. So on Tuesday, we are discussing something and she is enforcing the hand raising. She says to us, “Some of you who are not speaking up need to start talking.” She tells one of the training observers that they need to watch the class and let her know who isn’t speaking up. Well, I had not said much of anything up to this point, so on the next discussion point, I enthusiastically raised my hand. I was prepared to comment. She didn’t call on me. No big deal, I thought, I will comment on the next point. Again, my hand goes up. Again, trainer lady calls on the same select group of people who were previously doing all the talking. Well, okay, next time, I think. One more attempt and one more denial and I was done. Forget it, if she is only going to call on the people who already do all the talking, then she can’t ask for other people to speak up.
• She lied to us. We had a little competition yesterday at the beginning of our discussion on sex abuse. We were separated into groups and had to come up with words people might use for different body parts, for example, breasts. The point of the activity is to show that there are many terms we could hear while working in the field and we have to be prepared for them and be able to use the terms when talking with children and not be shocked or laugh. Anyway, my group scored the most terms and trainer lady said she would bring us a prize that afternoon or the next day (which would have been today). No prizes were had. This is not really a big deal, but combined with all the other stuff, she is just grating on my nerves. Treat us like children and we may act like children. I want my prize, dammit!

Needless to say, this has not been the easiest week of training. I am getting sick of being away from home and now I have lousy trainer to top it all off. Boo!