We’ll Bet Her Teachers Hated Her

My boss asked me to give a training session to the team. When I saw that [Employee] would be there, I made sure everyone had a form to sign to say that they attended and that they understood the core material I gave.

As expected, [Employee] talked the whole way through. Being quite pretty and popular, she had a number of the guys ignoring me, too. I asked for their attention several times; she just wouldn’t listen. I delivered the subject and a few of the guys stayed behind to ask some valid questions, but [Employee] was straight out the door. I checked her form; she signed it misspelled in a silly way. Clearly, she thought it wasn’t entertaining enough.

A few months passed. I offered a refresher session as the system was going live, but it was declined. I took my week’s planned holiday and put it out of my mind.

I came back to a dozen emails from [Employee] asking how the system worked, copying my boss, asking why it wasn’t covered in the training, and more emails demanding that I go through it with her again and “do it properly”.

I went straight to my boss’s office.

Boss: “The emails? I know, I know.”

Me: “Have you had any other complaints? Did anyone else struggle?”

He thought for a moment.

Boss: “Nope.”

Me: “And you were happy enough with the training I gave you?”

Boss: “Well, yes. I don’t suppose I could convince you to train her again?”

Me: “Not a chance. I did you a favour last time. Not doing it again.”

Boss: “That puts me in a bit of a situation. You’re the only internal guy we have that is competent on the system. I will have to get an external company in.”

Me: “You won’t be able to for the next three months. There is one company that can offer the training: my old company. And they are up to their eyeballs in work.”

Boss: “So, what do we do about [Employee]?”

Me: “It’s not up to me, but admin needs help. That storeroom of theirs is a mess.”

I wasn’t there when he told [Employee] that, without the system, she didn’t have much work to do, and she needed to help the admin team. But I hear it was a shouting match and a half.

[Employee] threatened to quit twice and stormed off-site before realising she needed to actually keep her job, and she spent some time in the old dusty file storage.