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a tough start at a new job

poor newbie

By Ms. RodwellPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 3 min read
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a tough start at a new job
Photo by Levi Midnight on Unsplash

May 13th, 2022

Hell is other people. - Jean Paul Sartre

It is Friday and I have the weekend off at work. I worked for 6 days in a row this week and I'm tired. The work itself is not so bad, but dealing with people swallows my energy. Even at lunchtime.

I have been training a new member of our team for the past month and a half. I don't know how to properly describe him without offending him, but he's different from the other employees. He's the opposite of a fast learner and he seems to have no filter when talking to people.

I had never met a person who was so sociable but still clearly lacked basic social skills. His seat is by the walking corridor, and whenever he sees someone he hasn't met before, he shouts 'hey, what's your name' and proceeds to stand up from his table to shake the person's hand and start a conversation. We're over 500 busy, stressed people at work - from many different cultures.

He might come up to you while you're having a serious one-to-one talk with a colleague and say that he might watch a soccer match when he gets home. Or that he went to an event you should have gone to. Years ago. In a city you've never been to. He just can't seem to read the room.

Despite his innocence and sweet naivety, he's already gotten a few warnings from HR; and only having been there for nearly two months. By now he's told me he watches porn, asked me if I take drugs and has invited a colleague to join him in a trip to the brothel. He asked a colleague why she hadn't yet been pregnant and that he could tell she had been crying after she came back to work from her granddad's funeral. She was obviously devastated and there was no need to point that out.

As I'm in a leadership position, and am one of the people he reports to, I had to bring these topics to those I report to. And let's just say it got interesting. I heard people diagnosing him, claiming he was this, or had that, or that this kind of job is not for everyone, that he might never learn, why are we wasting time, what's the point of keeping him, you get the gist.

I was gone for a few of these training weeks, and the updates I've received when I got back to work were surprising. Not only was he failing at the soft skills part of the job, which was expected, but he was also failing hard, in the hard skills department.

I do my best to teach him everything he needs to know to perform well at work, but somehow, he doesn't seem to register what I say. And after weeks of training and barely any progress, it has gotten quite frustrating, for both of us. I'll keep on trying of course. And I have promised myself that I won't give up on him. The progress is slow. Extremely slow. But it's there. There has been improvement, but just not nearly enough as we expected.

I don't want to say that I pity him, but sometimes I wonder if my actions towards him come from a bad place. I catch myself giving him comforting advice or going by his table to check on him. I have to check on him, of course. But I'm still afraid he already knows everyone can tell he's different. I don't know how much this hurts him, how much this has affected him prior to this job, or even if it affects him at all - and maybe time will tell. Or I might never truly know.

- Ms. Rodwell

Workplace
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About the Creator

Ms. Rodwell

call her a pseudonym or a catfish, but she'll persist in her pursuit of fabulousness

TT: @Ms_Rodwell

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