Being a team player on the short bus ... or how to tell your boss, "NO, I won't keep teaching these inept morons you keep hiring"

February 2, 2007 3:27 PM

Professional/career/office politics filter: How can I once and for all tell my boss that I don't want to keep teaching the unqualified workers he hires ...without getting fired for insubordination or seeing like I’m not a team player?

I’m a pretty highly-skilled multimedia/creative producer in a very, very antiquated business.

And I kinda work with a bunch of morons. Most people on my team are totally unqualified to do their jobs. They don't know how to do the essence of what they were hired for. They lied on their resumes or dropped a few buzzwords and somehow landed on my team. For instance, we just hired an editor to work on our website who has never touched HTML ... We hired another multimedia editor who has no skills at producing multimedia other than taking and editing still images.

My managers are just as inept. They don’t have technical skills (which they don’t necessarily all need, but they should be able to weed out the fakers and stop sticking me with morons).

Over the past year, I've offered 11 training sessions to try and get the rest of our staff’s skillset up to speed so I don't have to do the menial work and can focus on larger, more complex projects, but in offering those I'm now basically the organization’s corporate trainer and tech support. I rarely get to learn anything, I very rarely get to improve my skills or do any portfolio-worthy work and I’m miserable.

I’ve tried to explain this problem to my boss and his boss, and they listen and kind of nod in approval but then the next day will ask me to teach another inept co-worker how to do something they should have known when they walked out of school. And they keep using my reason to help training people against me saying, “Hey, if we just get Bob trained in this, you’ll never have to do this and you can focus on doing cooler projects.”

I used to love teaching others, now it’s a noose around my neck because my bosses figure they can hire any moron off the street for little money and make me train them into a decent worker. I’ve seriously considered drastic things like ‘slipping’ in the bathroom and saying that I have brain damage and can’t remember how to do stuff. Seriously. (I’m not really good at confrontation.)

--> How can I once and for all tell my boss I can’t teach the unqualified workers he hires anymore without getting fired for insubordination or seeing like I’m not a team player?

BTW: For those who are going to say "Just quit!" I’m working on that -- and currently shopping for jobs but I don’t want to totally burn the bridge at this organization for future references and definitely don't want to jump blindly into another organization like this one.

posted by jkl345 to work & money (16 comments total)

it obviously won't help with current employees, but have you asked your boss to let you be involved in the hiring process?
posted by jimw at 3:43 PM on February 2, 2007

It might be best to frame this as a "lost revenue potential" problem - they're paying you a lot of money to do something that you're not 100% qualified to do (train people to do their own jobs), and not letting you earn them money doing what you do best (actually produce work). Either they need to hire people who are actually qualified to do the job, or they need to hire someone else to train them.

Have you looked at the job descriptions of the people they're hiring? I wouldn't be surprised if the job description had nothing to do with the actual responsibilities of the job. Perhaps you should offer to help them rewrite it?
posted by muddgirl at 3:47 PM on February 2, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yes, get involved in the hiring process. If someone else is doing recruitment, ask to at least be involved as a second interview to assess technical and work related aspects.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 3:51 PM on February 2, 2007

Take a deep breathe and don't stress about it. I suspect these kinds of intrinsic managerial problems are unsolvable at your level. Sounds like the best thing for your career and sanity is to collect a paycheck while you look for another job.
posted by milinar at 3:55 PM on February 2, 2007

How about showing your boss how much of the day/week you spend teaching new people how to do the things they said that they already know how to do. And compare that to how much of day/week that you actually get something productive done for the company.

I'll assume that you get paid more than these people to teach them, so you might want to bring up the figures for (their pay + your pay) * number of hours that you are teaching them the very same thing they already claimed to know. Then take that figure and compare it to simply paying a little more for someone who actually knows what they should know.

And if the people in charge of hiring are also morons, you might help weed out the chaff. Again, compare the figures to sitting in on some interviews with the same amount of time teaching a paid employee (who will still have no significant experience doing what you have just taught them to do, even after spending the time to teach them everything).
posted by philomathoholic at 3:59 PM on February 2, 2007

get involved in hiring was the first thing that came to my mind, and apparently several others. It might not work, as they might not want you involved or might not want to hold out for more experienced employees, but you might at least get a say in which of the inexperienced ones get chosen. I'll take a smart inexperienced person over a dim witted yet experienced one any day.
posted by caddis at 3:59 PM on February 2, 2007

I inherited a department comprised of very skilled technical people who were poor on customer service, and people who were great with the customers, but weak on the technical side. Rather than spending all my time retraining, I had a meeting and explained that as a team we had all the skills we needed to be a solid department, but individually we needed to improve. And I let them train each other. I applied pressure here and there when needed, and applied incentives to improve in certain areas, and before long, people were chomping at the bit to be the one that got to help solve the problem.

Also, I made management give me full discretion over who I hired. Now when I bring new people in, I don't have to provide hardly any training myself anymore. I make sure I have people who have a good framework, bring them onto the floor and let the rest of the department train them.

Seems to be working great.

By way of example. When I started here, there was a mandatory six week training seminar to get personnel up to speed. I found this to be absurd, and the last few people I hired got to skip it in favor of on the floor training and a couple of hours in HR to get the policy stuff taken care of. Using peer training, I can get most of my staff on the phones (tech-support) in less than 10 days, with full knowledge of the 20 or so diagnostic programs that our department uses.
posted by quin at 4:16 PM on February 2, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Could you make a test for potential employees to take? This will weed out liars in a completely neutral way, and make it clear to your bosses what the core of the problem is.

Eg if the job requires a working knowledge of Photoshop, you can give them a start image and say, "Take 15 minutes to change this image in the following ways". Similarly for other programs or tasks?
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:59 PM on February 2, 2007

I’ve seriously considered drastic things like ‘slipping’ in the bathroom and saying that I have brain damage and can’t remember how to do stuff. Seriously. (I’m not really good at confrontation.)

Read When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, by Manuel Smith.
posted by russilwvong at 5:04 PM on February 2, 2007

Train one of the brighter morons under your purview to become your replacement. Have this person help with the teaching process - share with them an hour or two of your teaching schedule, then give them gradually more - then one day just cut the cord.

You'll have someone else teaching the new recruits, while you can do the work that you love.

But seriously, kl345, your note betrays a bit of ego. All of us have to do tasks at work that we like more with work that we like less, with people that we like more and people that we like less. Perhaps if you had a little bit less attitude and more compassion your office would be an easier place for you to work in?
posted by seawallrunner at 7:25 PM on February 2, 2007

Asking if you can test potential employees on basic skills for the job(s) they are being hired for would be helpful. I did this for a person they hired in my department last year. I tested three different people, all of whom looked good on paper, but had wildly different applied skills and aptitudes. Seeing how people did things helped us weed out the people who gave good interview, but just weren't going to be able to cut it in the job without months of ramp-up, which was time we did not have.

I also got the advantage of meeting the potential people that I was going to be working with. I was able to see if they would fit in with the team, as well as being able to do the work. None of the people we tested did the work perfectly, but I was able to see the potential in each one, and make my recommendation accordingly.

As for the people you have now, try to play to their strengths so training them doesn't feel like such an uphill battle. The skills you're getting by helping to develop these people are nothing to sneeze at either. It seems like it's not quite what you want to do, but they're still good skills to have. You may want to use them somewhere else, with different people.
posted by melissa at 8:09 PM on February 2, 2007

Good ideas so far. The key message you need to convey to management is not "I am sick and tired of training". It is "our hiring process is broken and that is hurting us".
I am trying to think of the best way to go forward with this. I think the most effective way is to put your feelings in writing in a one-page memo, send it to management, and schedule a brief meeting to discuss it. This should be all business and no emotion. For example:
"Our hiring process needs to change, for the following reasons:
- We are hiring technical employees who lack technical skills required for their posittion. Examples:
* Joe, photoshop editor, has never used photoshop
* Bob, media editor, has no media skills
- I have been training our new employees to attempt to instill the requried skills. However, during the training period they are draining resources and are not productive. In addition I am not contributing to the bottom line during training. I estimate XX total man-hours wasted this year, equivalent to $XXXXX.
- The skill shortages are significant. In many cases initial training can instill only basic proficiency and the maximum productivity reached is perhaps half of what a proficient skilled employee could achieve. I estimate a further XX total man-hours potentially wasted.


I propose the following:
- Add a technical interview to the hiring process, conducted by myself, to assess technical skill. This may include a skill test.
- Institute a technical proficiency component to the annual performance review for positions requiring technical skills.

- I must emphasize that the aforementioned candidates were (and in some cases remain) unqualified to perform the jobs they were hired for. I do not foresee any difficulty in finding qualified candidates once the hiring process has been adjusted to properly screen for technical skills.
posted by PercussivePaul at 8:50 PM on February 2, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I bet that's just what jkl345's managers feel.

Fair enough. But I should point out that I don't work at a Manager level. I am but a lowly supervisor and thus forced to engage with my employees on a moment to moment basis every day. When something is broken, either from the perspectives of those above me or those below me, I get the dubious honor of being the first to hear the complaints.

Let me be clear; I hate my job with a burning passion. I don't like that every position I take, I end up responsible for the livelihoods of others. And despite my best efforts to alienate those around me so that I can be left alone to just work by myself, people seem to like me. It's aggravating beyond belief.
But from an efficiency standpoint, and based on the loathsome metrics that upper management obsesses over, my team exceeds expectations every time we are reviewed. On the other side of it, my department has the lowest turn-over rate in our division. Of any department. And those that do leave, by and large stay within the company moving on to better positions. (Something that I actively encourage. No one wants to do tech support for ever, I've told my team that if they stay in the department for more than five years without getting a promotion that they have tried for, I've failed them.)

As I've indicated above, I would prefer to do something else. But history has taught me that I'm fated to have people listen to me. I figure if this is going to be the case, I'm going to make life easier for everyone whenever possible. The way I see it, if I have to be the Boss, at least I can be the kind of Boss that I would like to take orders from.
posted by quin at 10:08 PM on February 2, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

[That last comment felt kinda offtopic-ish. Sorry 'bout that.]
posted by quin at 10:09 PM on February 2, 2007

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses! :)

I've requested to get involved in the interview process and even suggested a test, but they've never taken me up on it. The organization is VERY hierarchal/vertical in its structure. If I go above my boss and his boss, the top boss won't necessarily heed my words, but instead will wonder why my boss and his boss don't have better control over me. (Believe me, I tried to present ideas in a more lateral organization structure and almost got fired for it).

Are there any suggestions on how to deal with the confrontation? Or bulletproof reasons why I can't do this training anymore?

At this point, I'm still plotting a bathroom slip. Before that though, I'm going to check out, "When I Say No, I Feel Guilty" at the library to hopefully cure me.

I'm also going to try and pull together a comparative expense sheet that will make sense to the leaders (although without knowing the lower workers exact salaries, it's hard to do).

Selling it to the leadership is a two fold challenge:
1-They don't understand things like Flash, design, 3d, database programing or video work ... or how much time it takes to do those jobs professionally.

2-The manager above me and his manager are deathly afraid of the company leaders finding out how inept they, themselves are. Before many meetings with the higher ups they come in to 'bounce ideas off of me' or to 'get my thoughts' .... then they propose that and don't give me credit to the top leaders.

The problem is there's basically a culture of 'yes men' in ties working at this companyb, that throw around marketing buzz words, but don't understand how the sausage is made.

I'm sorry if the message came through with a little bit of ego but I was ready to walk out at the time I wrote it, but I figured it was 3 p.m. on a Friday, I could survive two hours and make it to the weekend, so instead I typed my frustration on here. :)

Having said that, I don't think I'm being unreasonably egotistical (sure the language in the post may have been a bit coarse, but I am a highly-trained, highly-skilled, passionate worker.)

I've shared my talents and skills training our staff and in doing so built a crutch for my boss to look good by saving money on other highly skilled workers. Organizing training sessions, building exercises, power points presentations, tips sheets, teaching and then troubleshooting problems constantly afterwards takes a lot of time (on and off the clock!). Many weeks, more than 40-60 percent of my time is spent doing general training activities. And for a skilled professional that wasn't hired for training, that is unacceptable.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable.
posted by jkl345 at 11:48 PM on February 2, 2007

Who are these people that were hired? Last time I got to train inept morons, the morons were the boss's nephew, the boss's family friend (a single dad whose wife died of cancer), and the close friend of a favored employee. I was "involved" in the "hiring process", but the decision to hire had been made long before I met the people and assessed their skills. The interview was a pointless formality. In the case of nepotism, the only recourse is to quit.
posted by crazycanuck at 2:06 AM on February 3, 2007