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My coworker AO has been hired back at a manufacturing job she had for a while (but was laid off from on account of the recession), which means she will be switching from part-time to minimal-time at the smoke shop. Which means we needed a new employee.
If all the paperwork goes through, we have one! His name is PB (I keep wanting to ask him where J is, bad Liz, no biscuit) and he is a senior at Ithaca College, so we'll only have him for a year, but a year is an awful lot better than nothing. Today was his first day, and instead of starting out on a midday shift and basically learning A) the cash register, B) the lotto machine, and C) general operation of the store, he started on a closing shift which resulted in me and BW running him ragged trying to explain a thousand things at once, most of which I am sure he won't remember since there was no time to slow down and really process any of them.
We did, at least, manage to make PB do a bunch of things on his own with me or BW hovering watchfully -- which is better for learning than just watching us do stuff -- and the stuff we did ourselves we at least had him hovering right there where he could see everything... until the very end, when in the interest of getting us out of the building before 10pm, I told PB to count out his register the way I'd just demonstrated and let me deal with the lottery tickets and cigarette corrections and stuff, because if I'd taken the time to walk him through those tasks too, we would have been stuck in the store until who knows when. As it was, we barely made it out by 9:35pm.
(On my own, I can get out by 9:10 if I am feeling ambitious. Usually I get out somewhere between 9:15 and 9:20, because I like to do a bit of extra clean-up and set-up for the openers -- hey, it's only polite! -- and because five extra minutes on the clock is extra money in my pocket. *grin*)
I always feel slightly awkward when training new employees. First it was because I didn't feel I had been working at the smoke shop long enough to be an authority on anything. Now it's because I've been there so long I've lost perspective on what things need explanation and what things are self-explanatory, so I tend to over-explain everything; this gives me a constant, nagging feeling that I come off as condescending. *sigh*
The other thing I dislike about training people, of course, is that it requires me to talk. At length. For hours. My throat is not used to that kind of abuse!
Thank goodness for tea, I suppose. *wry*
If all the paperwork goes through, we have one! His name is PB (I keep wanting to ask him where J is, bad Liz, no biscuit) and he is a senior at Ithaca College, so we'll only have him for a year, but a year is an awful lot better than nothing. Today was his first day, and instead of starting out on a midday shift and basically learning A) the cash register, B) the lotto machine, and C) general operation of the store, he started on a closing shift which resulted in me and BW running him ragged trying to explain a thousand things at once, most of which I am sure he won't remember since there was no time to slow down and really process any of them.
We did, at least, manage to make PB do a bunch of things on his own with me or BW hovering watchfully -- which is better for learning than just watching us do stuff -- and the stuff we did ourselves we at least had him hovering right there where he could see everything... until the very end, when in the interest of getting us out of the building before 10pm, I told PB to count out his register the way I'd just demonstrated and let me deal with the lottery tickets and cigarette corrections and stuff, because if I'd taken the time to walk him through those tasks too, we would have been stuck in the store until who knows when. As it was, we barely made it out by 9:35pm.
(On my own, I can get out by 9:10 if I am feeling ambitious. Usually I get out somewhere between 9:15 and 9:20, because I like to do a bit of extra clean-up and set-up for the openers -- hey, it's only polite! -- and because five extra minutes on the clock is extra money in my pocket. *grin*)
I always feel slightly awkward when training new employees. First it was because I didn't feel I had been working at the smoke shop long enough to be an authority on anything. Now it's because I've been there so long I've lost perspective on what things need explanation and what things are self-explanatory, so I tend to over-explain everything; this gives me a constant, nagging feeling that I come off as condescending. *sigh*
The other thing I dislike about training people, of course, is that it requires me to talk. At length. For hours. My throat is not used to that kind of abuse!
Thank goodness for tea, I suppose. *wry*
