The New Girl - Part 2

I've been working with the new girl and slowly trying to transition some of my job duties to her. However, it is clear at this point that this will definitely be a challenge. I hope it isn't insurmountable, but I'm not even sure what the odds are at this point.

Is it a generation gap or just a personality flaw? The newbie is unable to focus on simple things, and in my opinion, has some form of ADHD. Either that or I have a walking, talking Valley girl on my hands. Thought that was just a Hollywood stereotype, did ya? So did I. The newbie just loves to talk and talk about all kinds of random crap. This is what a fricken liberal arts education does to people. They know a lot of useless facts but are uncapable of dealing in a work environment. Suuuure, they bullshit with the best of them but are completely incapable of getting work done . . . correctly I might add. Done correctly.

I never knew before today just how great and awesome traits like efficiency and common sense are. I've never really worked with anyone lacking these traits and don't really know how to deal with it. Sure, the new girl is a recent college graduate with limited work experience, but seriously? Seriously? How much brain power does it take to count a bunch of things and put them nicely back into a box? It would seem self-explanatory to me that if you're doing inventory you'd want to keep things nice and tidy for when you need to pull the items out in a pinch. What's the sense of counting thousands of items when you're just going to dump them back in a box and not keep track of them?

Another example of the idiocy I have to deal with ( just so you don't think I'm being unbelievably harsh) is the fact that it doesn't even dawn on her that when you're placing address labels onto an envelope, the labels should probably be straight and not tilted in a 45 degree angle. I mean, must something like this be part of the instructions given to her? "Attach one label to the envelope by placing it in the exact center of the envelope. Make sure it is parallel with the bottom edge of the envelope. Then insert a newsletter into the envelope and stack them all nicely in a box so you can take it to the mailroom." Is this the intelligence coming out of colleges these days? Seriously?

I had to talk to our manager today and bring up these and many other issues. The guy himself is a fool so I'm not sure how he is going to approach this. I plan on being very direct with the new girl from now on. I don't care if I come across as condescending. You need to prove to me that you're not an idiot before I talk to you as an adult and use words with more than two syllables.

Having to deal with this girl on a daily basis as well as our big, fat dummy of a boss might just be my undoing. I better concentrate and do this JET application to the best of my abilities. I don't think I can handle much more of anything in the current work environment.

Hell Two-Weeks Finally Over

I made it through 12 of 12 days of work. I feel like I should get down on my knees and praise the lord . . . or not. I have to admit that the business retreat for work went pretty well. It seemed to me that everyone had a good time. Hopefully this is reflected in the event reviews.

Our speaker was Bruce Goeas, and for the most part I enjoyed his presentation. The topic was communication, and he covered effective/ineffective communication, communication tools and generational communication. I think it's very timely, especially for our company that continues to grow rapidly. The generational communication was interesting since we have four generations within our organization as well as among the members we serve. Hopefully that'll allow people to understand each other better.

I learned that I'm on the cusp between Gen X and the Millennials aka Gen Y. I discovered I shared a lot of the viewpoints and attitudes stereotypical of these groups. Here are some beliefs for these groups:

Gen X - realistic; want to get the info straight without beating around the bush; work/life balance is important; and cynical about everything.

Millennials - want their work to have meaning; want to work smarter and faster instead of harder and longer; technology savvy; and believe that they are entitled (because they've been told they can do anything in the world since they were in diapers).

It's quite interesting and significant to ponder how these attitudes differ from the Traditionalists and Boomers. No wonder it's hard to communciate. Each group certainly has their own lingo, value set and life expectations. You never know what troll you will encounter when crossing those bridges.