Reaching Out And Falling Flat, Over And Over And Over And…

Last year, I got hired for a well-paying work-from-home job. I was very excited about it.

The company sent me a computer and instructions via email to my personal email account regarding my first day. I was to log in at 9:00 am (not sooner), and I would be able to access my work email, which would advise me of my first day’s agenda. I would also have access to the phone system, as well as the software they use. I was also told I would receive my login user ID and password via text on my cell phone that morning. I was also provided with my supervisor’s email address in case I had any problems logging in.

On the first day, I got my login information via text, and I couldn’t log into the system at all. I tried multiple times, thinking I was somehow messing it up. So, from my own laptop, I sent my supervisor an email (using my personal email address) letting him know that I couldn’t get logged in to the system at all, along with the error message message I had received.

[Supervisor] emailed me back.

Supervisor: “I’ve contacted IT, and you should hear back within the hour.”

An hour passed, and I heard nothing back, so I emailed [Supervisor] again. [Supervisor] contacted IT again and told me to give them an hour or so.

Another hour passed, and nothing.

I emailed [Supervisor] again letting him know, and this time, he sent me IT’s phone number.

IT Representative: “We’ve been trying to contact you to get this resolved.”

Me: “I haven’t received any correspondence from you.”

Anyway, it took him over forty-five minutes to figure out what was wrong. He got me logged in, and it worked.

I had a lot of work emails, including information for a Zoom orientation that had been two hours earlier. I also had several emails from IT trying to contact me about the problems I’d been having trying to log into the system. If I couldn’t log into the system, I wouldn’t be able to check my email. [Supervisor] had given IT my cell and personal email address to them to contact me.

I reached out to [Supervisor] and let him know I had gotten logged in, but I had missed the orientation.

No response.

My agenda for the next week was to watch company videos. So, that’s what I did. I also had to take tests on the material I had learned.

Now, I hadn’t been given exact times as far as start time, lunches, and stop time. I was told it was tentative and would be discussed on my first day. [Supervisor] never responded, so I worked until 5:00.

The next day, [Supervisor] finally reached out to me. He said that my work hours had been discussed in the orientation, but I was to work 8:00 to 4:30.

Supervisor: “Also, you should have received an email for a Zoom link to the software training.”

Me: “I haven’t gotten that.”

Supervisor: “Okay. I’ll reach out to [Trainer] and see why not. In the meantime, just keep watching the videos.”

By the end of the week, I had already seen all the videos three times, and no Zoom link was ever sent for the software training. I did let [Supervisor] know about the latter, and he told me that the trainer would send it for next week.

Week two: no link for the training class. [Supervisor] said he would reach out again.

Me: “Would you like me to reach out, as well?”

Supervisor: “No, only I can do that. You just keep watching the videos.”

So I did.

Toward the end of week two, still no training link had been sent.

Supervisor: “You have to have [training class] before you can actually start work. I’ll reach out to [Trainer] again. If you haven’t heard anything by end of day on Tuesday next week, let me know.”

Week three, Monday: [Supervisor] still told me to continue watching the videos; he had nothing else I could do as I needed that training.

Later in the day, I got an email from [Supervisor] saying he had some urgent accounts I needed to work on.

Me: “Do I need to use [the software that I haven’t been trained on yet]?”

Supervisor: “Yes.”

Me: “I still haven’t the Zoom link for the training for that.”

Supervisor: “Oh, that’s right. I will reassign these accounts to someone else. Keep watching the videos, and I will reach out to [Trainer].”

I was getting frustrated. They seemed unorganized at this company.

Tuesday came, and still nothing about the training. So I let [Supervisor] know. He did not respond.

On Wednesday afternoon, I got an email from [Supervisor] demanding to know why I hadn’t started on those urgent accounts. I replied:

Me: “Per our conversation on Monday, I still haven’t gotten an email for the training that I would need to work on the accounts. You said that you would reassign them to someone else and that you were going to reach back out to [Trainer].”

His next email said:

Supervisor: “I never said that. I told you to work on the accounts. Why haven’t you had training? That’s something everyone gets in their first week. What have you been doing, then?”

I was very annoyed by this point.

Me: “Well, if you check your previous emails saying that I was not scheduled for training my first week, you said you would reach out to the trainer. I have emailed you several times about this and asked if I could reach out myself, and you said no. You are the one who told me to keep watching the videos until we got this training scheduled. I still have them and will forward them to you.”

I forwarded the emails to him.

Supervisor: “Well, the company is not going to like that you’ve been watching videos this whole time. You should have already been through the training class and working on accounts. I did get a response from [Trainer] today, and she informed me that she will not have another training class for two weeks. We can’t have you watch videos for that long. I need you to work on the accounts I sent you ASAP.”

Me: “Are you or someone else going to help me as I do not know the software? Can I job shadow someone first?”

Supervisor: “I am too busy to help, and so are the other team members. We don’t job shadow here. So, work on the accounts the best way you can, and if they are wrong, then I will let you know.”

This was such a piss-poor way of trying to learn a job. No training, and these were urgent accounts. It seemed to me like they would want them done correctly the first time around.

So, I emailed Human Resources and told them I resigned. I also forwarded all the emails to them.

The videos I watched would not have been helpful in the job I was hired to do, either.

The funny thing is that after I sent my resignation over to HR, [Supervisor] tried to call my cell phone, and he left a voicemail wanting to know if I had started on the accounts as I hadn’t replied to his emails.

I had reached out to HR at one point about the training class that I hadn’t been scheduled for, to see if they could help, and they said that was between me and my boss.

I saw reviews later on about this company, and they have a 2.5 employee satisfaction rate. Lots of complaints of improper training, lack of communication, and incompetent bosses were the biggest gripes.