Any of you guys see this where you work, mostly with these big companies that have lots of layers of management?

Company ABC says: "XYZ Annual Compliance Training is to be completed by September 1st, no if's ands or buts!""

Then it starts flowing downhill from there where each successive director or manager adds his or her own due date, so by the time it gets to us people in the trenches, it's now due on June 1st and God help you if you miss that date.

I swear this has become a dick-measuring contest to see who can get their group's people completed before the other director's group.

Yep. Same with training that has to be taken once per year, every year, but you start to get notified 45 - 60 days before it's due.

Say I take online training June 1 of last year. This year I get a notice 45 days before, so ~April 15. Being the good employee I am, I take my training on April 15. Next year my training is due April 15, and I start getting notices March 1. Gawd forbid you wait until the last minute to take the training so you don't have your date creep earlier and earlier every year. Then, I start gettign reminders from my manager 30 days before it's due.

The worst piece of advice I ever followed was when I was first hired. Someone in HR told me to NOT take my training all at once. The logic being then it's all due at the same time next year. I spaced the training out over my first 6 weeks. The next year I constantly had to take training as my due dates were scattered all over!

Such a pain in the ass, all this training BS.

You obviously haven't had a lot of time managing the drones.

When you first start managing, you try to see them as competent people who are able to follow simple instructions and meet a deadline.

90-95% of them do, 5-10% of them don't (conservatively). That last 5-10% causes you soooo much ass pain - first by having to listen to their recycled drivel of excuses and such, then by having to get roasted by your upper level management - ie, making you look bad which can impact evaluations / raises / promotions.

Simply put the drones incompetence is taking money out of your wallet and food out of your mouth. Two words apply - Fuck that.

So everyone adds a week or two, because of the incompetent 5-10% will undoubtedly miss yet ANOTHER deadline.

So be mad at the idiots among you, as they are the reason you all suffer.

Training at my business consists of The Boss saying, "Listen up. Here's how I want this done." Training is done on an as-needed basis.

Of course it helps that I am the boss.

It wasn't training, but planning for a building rennovation - One boss had me box up personal stuff and move it out of my cubical last July. Actual construction is still not started yet.

Also, annual evaluation - year ends on September 30, but we have to turn in our "what I did this year" B.S. at the end of July. So basically we have to get 12 months stuff done in 11 months or not have it counted toward our "beans" during the review...

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Any of you guys see this where you work, mostly with these big companies that have lots of layers of management?

Thank God NO!!! It's me doing my own specialized work for a GM and owner.

Yes, and that's with just about everything.

They sit and wait to figure out when they want something to be done. And then every layer wants their buffer time and subtract that to determine that date they give to their reports.

It doesn't matter that when it reaches you, your deadline was two days ago so you better hop to it.

In the Army we call that Mission Creep. That's how you end up securing a pickup zone three hours early waiting for a helicopter to come pick you up and hoping you don't get mortared while being out in the open. Got to enjoy that experience in 2003 in Iraq. Nothing like mortars landing around you as you're boarding a Chinook.

Ah, retirement...

I haven’t had to attend the annual fire extinguisher training since I retired.

It took an hour to hear the same ABC crap I heard back in 1981.

It is not like there were annual technological changes in extinguishers over the years which would warrant a reason for attending.

Nobody moved the extinguishers, but the annual training still meant us having to have a tour of the building I worked in for years. Jup, they are still in the same place as they were last year.

Waste of fucking time.

quote:

Originally posted by Hunthelp:
Ah, retirement...

I haven’t had to attend the annual fire extinguisher training since I retired.

It took an hour to hear the same ABC crap I heard back in 1981.

It is not like there were annual technological changes in extinguishers over the years which would warrant a reason for attending.

Nobody moved the extinguishers, but the annual training still meant us having to have a tour of the building I worked in for years. Jup, they are still in the same place as they were last year.

Waste of fucking time.

That's one of the things that drove me out of the Volunteer Fire Service. Doesn't matter that you GAVE the training for several years, or that you could ace any quiz on the subject they cared to throw at you. Asses in seats and attendance records is all that counted. And the list was endless.

I wait to the last minute regardless. If the comet comes look at all the time I've saved.

I got so damn sick of the annual CPR/AED/ First Aid training . Those videos were mind numbing . The same people in Khaki pants and Polos asking " Are you ok ? Call 911 " .
No more ! Retirement is awesome ...

I could never work in the Corporate World again as it seems to have gotten worse with more & more bullshit. For the last 10 years I have worked as a CPA from my 3 level townhome. The daylight basement has my Office, Gun Room, TV, refrigerator, & my Beagle. I work when I want & as much as I want. If a client is too bossy, takes forever to provide requested information, or does not pay immediately I ask them to find someone else.
It did take several years to get a good client base that appreciates what I do for them.

We had that compliance crap at my pre retirement job. The sexual harassment/hostile workplace one was good for entertainment.

This was due on our anniversary date each year. I used to let them run in the background and change screens at the appropriate time to answer the multiple choice questions, the same ones I had answered the previous eight tests I had taken.

A waste of time but if someone went over the line or committed a no-no the company could say "that person was informed previously of our policy".

USAF:
"The General's briefing at the base theater will be at 1400."
Wing Commander: Be in place at 1345.
Ops Group Commander: Be in place at 1330.
Squadron Commander: Be in place at 1315.
Squadron Ops Officer: Be in place at 1300.
Crew Commander: Be in place at 1245.
So we sit in the Base Theater for 1½ hours because the General is 15 minutes late, and dosen't start the 15 minute brief until 1415.

You just reminded me that I have some training due.

Compliance training is pretty much all utter BS anyway. When I got out of big corporate to go to a small private college, I was thrilled to not have to do it anymore. Then a few years in (during the Obama administration), Dept of Ed started cracking down, they hired a bunch more HR drones and appointed a VP of compliance to make sure we all wasted a significant ammount of time every year completing our pointless .gov mandated training.

I'd sit at my desk doing real work with the online videos playing muted in the background, then just take and pass the quizzes. I think the thing that pissed me off the most was even after all the time and money they wasted on this, they weren't actually trying to teach you anything...it was all just to make us jump through hoops so they could tell the .gov that we'd done it.

Now that I'm in LE, at least you actually learn something in training once in a while, and sometimes we get to shoot. I didn't escape it entirely, but at least it's more useful.

quote:

I'd sit at my desk doing real work with the online videos playing muted in the background, then just take and pass the quizzes. I think the thing that pissed me off the most was even after all the time and money they wasted on this, they weren't actually trying to teach you anything...it was all just to make us jump through hoops so they could tell the .gov that we'd done it.

Same here my last year of teaching. Up until then it was 2-3 days of sitting with sore butts as were learned about “Blood borne pathogens” and similar stuff.

Recall the time we got a new department chair. She informed us we were losing the district $30,000 a month as out IEPS were late. Therefore we’d turn out IEPS in the month before they were due. So June would be handed in by early May.

Things were South when I asked how we’d handle September’s cases? Do we get paid to come in during the summer? To throw more gas on the fire I pointed out my share of the $30,000 was $6,000. Could I see the records? You know, which detailed which IEPs were late? It didn’t go well for the department chair.

Quit on Tuesday, got hired Friday in a diffent district, started work the following Tuesday (Labor day)

The company I work for is the same way. Glad to see it's not isolated to just us.