Training a new member of our team at work

Later on today, I begin training a new contractor joining our team. I interviewed her with my manager a few weeks back.

He decided to hire her early. So, we basically got her to join our team without getting her a laptop or any account information set up. All of this craziness happened while I was on vacation, with my friend and colleague taking over my usual onboarding duties whenever we have someone new joining our team.

Luckily, she has all her software access rights in place now. I simply go into training mode, which hopefully goes smoothly.

Blind interviewing

I'm conducting an interview with my manager at 8 am later today. Sadly, I don't have any meeting details. I know that I'm interviewing one of two candidates. I don't know which one.

Stellar organization... not!

To make an extremely long story short, the person whom I trained back in late April didn't work out. My manager decided to terminate his contract. We need to fill that position as soon as we can, which means that I'll be training this person.

Happy Friday!

My former intern returns as a contractor

Yesterday, my former intern joined our team as a contractor. It's great having him back.

The downside was getting his laptop up and running. We had several obstacles, including not having a password for him to log into said laptop. Crazy!

We did manage to get what we wanted to work. There's more to come later on today.

Ankle pain and refresher training

I woke up before 7 am on Sunday with ankle pain. I walked a lot of Saturday, so it was not surprising.

I have an odd workweek this week. My former intern has returned to the workplace as a contractor. Training will be different. I am doing a refresher part, which really depends on him.

I also start my workday at 8 am. I am looking forward to not doing daily chats with my team at 4:45 pm.

Work frustration, but comforted by a sore bottom

It has been a while since I have ranted about work. Unfortunately, the cycle has restarted.

Back in November of last year, we hired two contractors. My manager fired the male contractor a month later, as he was highly unproductive. The female contractor showed promise. She was eager to learn and was hard-working.

She and my manager do not get along. My manager insisted that she start work with the rest of her agile team. She prefers to start work at 07:30. Only one other person is in the office at that hour and that person does not work directly with her. She didn't compromise with my manager. Instead, she still comes in at the same time, but takes more breaks and leaves work half an hour later.

My manager has set up team lunches every Friday, so that we can all bond. No team member is obligated to attend all of them, but these invitations caused stress for the contractor.

Late on Monday, my manager forwarded an e-mail from this contractor, who essentially resigned and said that this week would be her last with the company. Frankly, I don't think that she can give less than a week's notice. It's just not classy.

I had suspected that she would jump ship. Being sick for a week was my tipoff. On Monday, she cited getting her basement attended to in the morning due to flooding. She was adamant that she would be away in the morning, but would resume work from home in the afternoon. I have a feeling that she knew that she no longer wanted to come into work.

So, my manager has yet again asked me to step in and take over a departing writer's tasks. I am frankly sick of bailing people out. One writer goes on vacation and I am the only one who ended up subbing for her. Another writer quit a year ago. I picked up her slack. What about last December when two writers could not get their act together and do their jobs? Another writer and I slaved away to get the job done under tight deadlines.

I need to seriously consider finding another job. I feel, yet again, that my career is stagnant. I do not want to be filling in for folks who quit.

Apparently, we have three positions open. I can only hope that they all get filled so I can do what I enjoy doing these days, which is teaching folks how to write rather than being taken for granted as someone who can save the day when we are short-staffed. However, I still need to see what jobs are out there. Perhaps I can find one that is close to home and that I find challenging.

I will continue regularly scheduled fun posts soon. Yes, my backside is still sore from my recent spanking. It makes me feel loved that my guy would spank me after a long day of travel.

Cloning me leads to more spankings and pleasure?

It has been an interesting week or so. Let's just say that this entire week has flown by because being busy does wonders.

Just over two weeks ago, I started training two co-op students. They are sweet, intelligent, and hard-working.

This week, I am training a new contractor. She's funny. She is older than I am.

I have noticed that contractors tend to get confused with which password to enter on what computer system. It has been the case with three contractors that I have trained within the past four months.

The problem is trying to make sure that my small team of the original contractor, the two co-op students, and my new contractor are all okay. Everyone is understanding that I am only one person. The original contractor has suggested that I be cloned.

Would being cloned truly be beneficial to the world? I don't know.

Perhaps my guy would like the idea of having more than one me when we are intimate. I can only imagine him spanking multiple me clones and all of us pleasuring him.

Perhaps this cloning idea isn't that bad after all. Hmm...

Vacation is over and reality is setting in

Wednesday was my last day of vacation. I have enjoyed being away from the craziness known as work for nearly two weeks.

It has been wonderful sleeping in practically every day. It was nice to lose track of the days for a while.

I dislike checking my work e-mails. I have had to a few times over my vacation. I get a ton of them, but I sift through them to see if any are truly pressing. I had to address one, which involved ordering various access for a new co-op student.

I am supposed to start training a couple of co-op students. Last semester, the company froze hiring any co-ops. It was a bummer, which was why we ended up with contractors instead.

There is a huge difference between contractors and co-op students. The latter try their very best to succeed. The former seem to be more concerned with leaving work because they only get paid for the hours that they are at work. Students don't seem to have that mentality.

One student starts next Monday. The other one is late with her paperwork. So, the thought of training both of them simultaneously is a lost cause for the time being.

My manager has made the decision to get me off doing actual grunt work. It sounds good, but I need proof. For what seems to be years, I have been doing way more than my fair share of writing while trying to train folks and handle more team issues. It's not the best situation. I tend to feel stressed -- that I am not doing the best job that I can on all fronts. Instead, I can only do my best under the circumstances, which is pretty good when I look back at everything.

Tomorrow, I am back to answering e-mails with some folks who do not have a clue what is going on. At least my workweek this week is two days, so it's pretty good.

My guy thought that I was back at work on Tuesday. I explained the whole drama about my not being able to take a couple of days before Christmas. I was forced to come in to be a part of the Christmas entertainment party. Instead, one of the development managers had scheduled a software release. I had to work on it with the contractor who had made a number of mistakes. These mistakes led to both of us missing the Christmas party and staying at work till 18:30.

The good news about this month is that my guy has classes to teach at the office for a couple of weeks. It means that we get to have lunch together and I can continue to tease him about driving his new car.

Contractor nightmare is over and my spanking is coming

The nightmare at work (that is, the male contractor who yawns and is nonproductive) ended on Tuesday. My manager gave him two weeks to complete an assignment remotely and declared him terminated from the company after he hands in his work.

Part of me felt relieved. I was having my lunch when my manager escorted the contractor from the building. It has been highly stressful to work with someone who is clearly there to earn money and to not learn. The other part of me does not like to see him lose his job less than a month before the holidays.

He spent nearly a week editing a single Word document that was well under 100 pages. He had a deadline originally set for two days to get it done.

He doesn't retain much that I have taught him. Oddly, my manager told me that this contractor remembered that I had said that he was doing a good job. Um, that was during his second week. It wasn't as of late. My boss said that he is clueless. I have to concur.

My manager stated that everything that he does ends up having mistakes. He is right. Every time I had to review his work, including early Tuesday morning, I found mistakes.

He could not get processes in order. They were not difficult to follow!

Frankly, I wasn't too thrilled after interviewing him with my manager nearly two months ago. I didn't like the idea that he wanted to learn what everyone else was doing around him. My boss regrets hiring him. I also didn't get how this contractor scribbled notes on the side of his writing test that he had completed just before his interview with us. Why?

My manager left the contractor's training manuals and his notebook. I leafed through the latter. He included his monthly expenses. He had thirty bagels going for a dollar each. As someone who loves bagels, he was paying too much for one. I ended up ripping his notes out of the notebook and shredding them. His notes were not detailed.

My guy wrote the training manuals. He is always helpful when I ask him for them for my co-op students and new hires.

My guy is busy preparing for his trip. He flies out on Friday. It's the same day where I receive 34 x 4 smacks across my backside. And, yes, it makes me happy just thinking about it.

Blogger changes, contractor woes, yummy sweets, and gym trips

I see that Blogger's user interface has changed. It gives you the look and feel of a Google application. So far, I haven't come across any bugs. Naturally, there is plenty of time to find one!

With the annoying contractor at work, we had a talk and I gave him a piece of my mind. I was firm, but not to the point where I was bashing him to death. Part of me wanted to, but I am too polite to do that in front of his face. I felt better. He hasn't got a clue.

I told my guy about my interactions with the guy. He laughed at the fact that this guy is socially inept and started firing work-related questions when I first walked into the office. As usual, my guy told me to hang in there. After all, this guy will be gone in a month's time.

My manager and I had a venting session on Friday about this guy. We both agreed that his contract will not be renewed next year. He advised that this guy will not pass probation.

My guy and I had a good chat on Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, my new cell phone provider's signal is weaker than my previous one when it comes to talking in the basement. I need to do some research on cell phone boosters in the home. I was fine holding it up in the air, doing my best impression of the Statue of Liberty, which made my guy laugh.

Anyway, my guy is travelling to Egypt and Moldova in over a week's time.

"What would you like me to bring back from Cairo?" my guy asked me.
"How about those honey sweets that you brought back a few years ago. They were yummy," I replied.
"Sure. Yummy goodies for a yummy girl."

We chatted while we both worked out. I was on my glider. My guy at the gym on a treadmill.

"I was planning to go to the gym yesterday, but I didn't. I was dressed for it," my guy admitted.
"Hey, that's progress. In the past, you would just say no and climb back into bed without changing your clothes."

He chuckled. He knew that I was speaking the truth.

Frustration with a contractor - ugh!

I enjoyed blogging this past weekend. Frankly, I miss the weekend already. I was relaxed, happy, and cheerful.

All of those sentiments faded away when I got to work on Monday. I have to vent. 

It has been a while since I have felt so perturbed over a co-worker's actions that it makes me feel sick.  I felt tension in my neck and forehead. I could feel heartburn creeping in. My stomach has been queasy. I have felt this way for several hours now. Luckily, a nice, relaxing warm shower has got me in the mood to write.

At work, we recently hired two contractors. The first one is male. The second one joined a week later and is female. I don't have an issue with the latter.

The male is problematic. He constantly yawns throughout the day. He doesn't take notes. I actually had to tell him to take notes. Funny how professors never truly tell their students to take notes. It's implied that you do. 

He isn't a quick learner. He doesn't do what I have asked him to do and his work suffers. He takes constant breaks. The list goes on and on.

The first incident happened last Thursday. I came in to work and he attempted small talk. He asked me whether I was thrilled about not having a 07:00 meeting. It was an uninteresting one-liner, but I give him credit from trying. I simply told him that these meetings are part of the job.

I still had my coat on. I still had my lunch bag strapped across my body. I had yet to take my laptop out of my bag. He started asking me work-related questions.

I don't work that way. Let me settle in. I told him so. He is 27 years of age. He doesn't act it.

I finally got my coat off and started logging on to my laptop. I grabbed my mug to get some hot water for my tea. Apparently, my bluntness wasn't effective enough. He started again with another work-related question.

"I am getting hot water. Are you serious? Let me settle in. Your question can't be that important, can it?" I asked him, practically rhetorically.
"No, it can wait."

As much as I like helping people out, I don't like starting my workday with countless questions and have yet to sit down to do work. Let me answer my e-mails and log in to all applications that I need. Let me breathe.

Then, there was Monday. I met with him to see how he was doing with a fairly straightforward writing task. Well, I thought that it was straightforward.

"Did you start a [documentation] build?" I asked him.
"No, I forgot," he replied.
"We need to start a build, so we can see what the documentation looks like from a reader's perspective. Often, I will catch issues that I don't see in our editor," I stated.

Well, my words of wisdom backfired on me. I asked him to start a build. I had yet to review his work.

My manager and this co-worker had a one-on-one meeting Monday afternoon. They came out of the meeting with my manager asking that all three of us talk about some work items that they had discussed.

It turns out that they reviewed the documentation build output that I had yet to review. Sure enough, this co-worker managed to make a guide that is supposed to have the same content in two different software products look completely different. He messed up bigtime.

I pointed out that it was the reason why he needed to build our documentation -- to review it. My manager also asked him the same question.

I was probably more perturbed that I had to explain what he was doing to my manager. This guy obviously cannot communicate what he is or was working on.

I also wasted even more time talking to him. As usual, he has a bunch of questions and does not try to retain any answers that I have given him on countless occasions. I sound like a parrot. I don't get any treats, though.

Oh, did I mention that we have a deadline for this Friday to have all our documents completed? It's not going to happen with this incompetent contractor.

I was steaming in frustration for the remainder of my time at the office. I haven't felt like that in a while.

My working out helped. So did the shower, as I have just mentioned. Blogging does, too. It's therapeutic.

I do wish that my guy could be with me right now. He's always good at hugging me, kissing my forehead, and telling me that things are going to work out. They always do. 

He's right. I just miss that reassurance from him.