I work at an electronics repair warehouse, been here for almost two years, recently, the department manager has started handing me some more managerial tasks, although nothing’s been put down on paper, I get the feeling he wants to set me up as the manager of my department…
MacTech, with “Authoritah”? There’s a scary concept…
Anyway, we have two new hires in my department, both have been here three months, both have equal access to resources and training manuals, as well as my experience
Co worker 1 is a great worker, and seems to have “the knack”, heck, he solved a laser printer problem that stumped ME and I’m a factory authorized tech, he had no tech experience with laser printer repair at all, he just looked at things from an angle I never considered, he’s adaptable, smart, curious and willing to learn
IOW, he has “The Knack”
Co worker 2, OTOH, is a decent mechanic/parts swapper, point him at a project he knows how to do and he’ll storm right through it and utterly slay the assigned task, but he just doesn’t “think outside the box” as it were, once his project is done, he waits around waiting to be assigned to another task
Also, he seems to have a “need” for things to be “just so”, if the parameters of the assigned task change or vary in any way, or he thinks he’s been given the “wrong” directions, he gets a bit mopey and sour, he doesn’t seem to realize that our production floor is a dynamic, mercurial, ever-changing environment, and sometimes things change, depending on any numbers of variables, you have to be flexible and willing to “roll with it” to succeed in this environment, rigid conformation to “the rules” is a detriment in my department
He’s been frustrated a bit with machines he’s been assigned to because I hadn’t realized that my normal teaching style doesn’t work for him, normally my style is “this is the basic concept, this is what typically happens, this is what we want to happen, find a way to make it work that works for you”
My philosophy is that everyone learns in their own way, and what works for me might not necessarily work for you, I DON’T like the “This is how it’s done, no exceptions” style of teaching, as it doesn’t take into account variables inherent in our department
Previously, I had been trying to train Co-worker 2 this way and he was resisting me, so today, I tried another way….
First off, I explained and demonstrated the basic concept of laser printer operation and theory to him and explained why it worked the way it did, I then led him through a troubleshooting session on a bad printer, no matter what I tried, he would not even attempt to troubleshoot the issue, he just wanted to be told how to fix it, in the end, I gave up, and tried the “this is how you do it” teaching technique, and although he fixed the problem at hand, he could not explain WHY the fix worked, in his mind, the problem was fixed and that’s the most important thing
Problem is, without a good basic knowledge of theory, he’s going to be less than effective when he inevitably encounters one of those “unusual” situations so prevalent on the production floor and that will just end up frustrating him even more
He went through and repaired the printer, amazed that I was right the whole time (bad High Voltage Power Supply causing “ghosting” on the drum), I’m hoping this little training session made him realize that i do know what I’m talking about and that I’m not just leading him around trying to waste his time
however, the biggest problem I have is with a low-level personality conflict between all three of us, CW1 and I are very similar in troubleshooting style and personality, and like me, CW1 will look for new projects voluntarily when his existing task is finished, if there are no waiting work orders, he’ll go and re-troubleshoot “unrepairable” units or test out our pile of used spare parts to filter out marginal or bad parts
CW2 has a very “particular” personality (all right, “anal” if you must) and has no problem griping and ranting to my face, last week, he had a minor hissy fit about my “Bin O’ Screws”, a little plastic jar where I put any miscellaneous screws I find in the work area, he saw the “BOS” as completely “unprofessional” and got all rangy and confrontational about how all the screws should be sorted according to size and type (there’s literally THOUSANDS of assorted screws in the “BOS”, he was practically foaming at the mouth about it in anger, all because he needed a set of screws (which he misplaced, BTW) for a printer and wondered if I had any spares
Because I wasn’t able to produce the correct screws, on demand, in 0.68 seconds or less, he got all bent out of shape over the “unprofessional” nature of the BOS, he claimed that none of the places he worked ever had such a disorganized screw selection…
….funny, every place I’ve worked had a BOS, to me, it’s normal, I do keep my repair screws organized, but the BOS is for emergencies or for machines that may have stripped out or enlarged screw boss holes, that thinking outside the box thing again…
His little outburst annoyed me so much that, had I been an actual manager, I would have taken him aside for a verbal warning, if he continued in his rangy, pouty form, it would have progressed further….
indeed it did, for the remainder of the workday, he had this pissy mood when dealing with me, he still does to a certain extent, and I’m sick of it
Basically, to sum up a long post….
How do I train someone that refuses to think for themselves
how do I get him to relax the frak down and stop being so frakking anal about meaningless crap
and most importantly….
How do I tell him to lose the “Prima-Donna” attitude and stop being such a pissy little drama queen….
Look, I’m just a tech, like him, if you had to give me a title, maybe “head technician” would work, but I’m NOT a manager or the boss, so pulling an attitude with me won’t work, worse still, if I WAS a manager, or had some form of Authoritah, ranting and raving at me about meaningless stuff is not a good way to get on my good side.
