There is an admin here who hates her job. She has been here for a long time (most of the admins have – they’re all in the 9-15 year timeframe of job longevity at The Company). She laments to me occasionally about how she does not get good quarterly reviews despite working hard and pitching in. However, over the past few months I’ve noticed a lot of things about her.
1) She doesn’t know Word very well. She’ll come to me with questions about very simple processes in Word. She’ll work for hours on a two-page meeting agenda that theoretically should be done in 15 minutes.
2) And forget about Word tables – she is unable to work in tables and gets flustered when one of her superiors asks her to make one. And she can’t even work with existing tables that need edits.
3) She only knows the basics in Powerpoint. And by basics I mean BASICS.
4) She complains about a boss being mean to her, but I’ve only ever heard him be pleasant to her. She complains that he has it in for her by making her do things 5-6 times. I’ve told her that’s just his own inability to make a final decision, but she disagrees and feels he’s out to get her.
5) She’s also unable to make a decision. She constantly comes to my desk to ask my opinion about a font size, a margin space, a type of bullet.
Her hatred of her job doesn’t necessarily bother me, but it does annoy me. Because she’s one of those *sighers*. She gets stressed and each time she does something (stand, sit, print, type, hang up the phone, read an email, make a copy, etc.) she lets out this big tired sigh that can be heard all the way over at my desk.
Then she’ll come to me and complain and say, “I need to be more like you – I shouldn’t get so stressed,” and I agree, and yet ten minutes later she’s at my desk stressing out over the smallest most ridiculous item that is of no concern whatsoever to the task at hand.
She’s also one of those people from school who felt they failed the advanced physics test only to find out she got a 98% while everyone else DID fail the test. She’s going to night classes to get her 4-year degree and every day she’d come in claiming that she failed her test the night before. Then three days later she’d come over and say, “Oh, I actually passed with a 98% – I can’t believe it!” That’s what I’m dealing with – booksmart but NO common sense AT ALL.
Sounds as if she just needs have further instruction in computer basics (looks who’s talking) that would increase her skills and self-confidence in her job. Her boss probably doesn’t have it in for her, he would just like to have her be more efficient. Does The Company offer classes on Word and Powerpoint?
Marmie beat me to my point. Training will go a long way towards helping her confidence in her tasks. If the company won’t do it, then maybe she could try taking something at CompUSA or similar computer stores. I took Excel and Access courses from them and learned a ton.
I say to hell with the OLD BAG… If she’s been at the job this long and doesn’t know how to do a simple Word Talbe… then she isn’t worth keeping around.
The next time she sighs… make a loud comment about how she is sucking all the oxygen out of the air.
:biggrin:
Mr. Sympathy Here!