Monday, April 16, 2007

Raising my Irish

I hope this child doesn't get my temper. It tends to get me in trouble, or almost in trouble ...like this morning when after listening to a particularly rude message from a co-worker of mine I slammed down the phone, slammed my cube door and stormed into my other co-worker's office swearing like a sailor.

I'll admit, when it comes to my work I am easily offended. I don't do this job on a whim. A little history on this situation. When I started in July we were part of another group that focused on sales. The contract administration team reported into my boss. Apparently, well before my tenure began at this lovely institution, things went sour between my boss and the contract admin team. Now, because people can be rude and downright nasty (and big scardy cats), instead of addressing their issues with my boss they are mean, rude and altogether unfriendly to me and the others who report to my boss. In September my boss and a handful of us were reorganized into another staff group, however, due to our reliant relationship with each other, our previous group is still a big part of our day-to-day activity and we work very closely with them on compliance related issues. In January, two of the members of the contract admin team were asked to take retirement packages (our entire company went through this - not just specific departments). The leader of the contract admin team was one of the people selected. Unfortunately, this person provided a good deal of contract-specific training to other employees. Since January I have been attempting to get insight into this training and have been blocked repeatedly. Today was the last straw. Regardless of his impending retirement status his boss is going to get an earful from me.

On Thursday of last week I left him a message requesting that I be allowed to attend his training session scheduled for Wednesday of this week. I explained that my desire is to glean some of the tribal knowledge he passes along in this session. This morning he left me a vmail telling me that he didn't see the value in my attendance because "since you do not work with the contracts, you will never be able to train on this topic".

I'm sorry what?

That would be like me saying (had we been on the phone) that since he isn't technically a trainer and has never had any education on training he shouldn't be training anyone. That's crap. And he clearly does not understand that in order to be an effective trainer one does not have to be the resident subject matter expert. One needs to utilize said SME's to gather information and put together the material. Does he not think about the fact that after he leaves there will be more people that need to be trained? Doesn't he get that by passing on information he is helping the future of the organization?

Maybe I should point out to him that he still holds shares in this organization and if he doesn't want the next generation of employees to have the knowledge all he is doing is potentially f'in up his retirement. Obviously, he doesn't think beyond his little bubble (which, I have to admit, is not uncommon at this place).

Nothing like an incendiary vmail on a Monday morning to get my Irish blood boiling. I haven't been this awake on a Monday morning in some time.

2 comments:

kmd said...

That's my Holly!

carrster said...

ooh that would get my blood just a-boiling too!!!! Grrrr f'ers.