I have worked at this company for 3 weeks now and this woman who is training me is obviously trying to get me fired. My boss can’t see it because he has trusted her for years. She goes to him about everything that goes on with me. Right from the beginning it was obvious her bosses wanted to hire me and she didn’t. So she trains me the wrong way to do things and then confuses me when she says she didn’t teach me that way. I wrote it down even. Now we have to go by these standards which, although they are standard throughout the industry, they are still subjective and each company interprets them differently. Every company I have worked for (many) is different this way. So when I started (she was training me unwillingly) I would judge them by the highest standards and see where it went from there on her opinion. Of course everything I said was wrong. I was being too stringent. So I went to a mid level. NOW today, she set me up. She gave me this job to do and I thanked her (trying so hard to be nice). Under her breath she said (loud enough for me to hear) “You won’t thank me when you see this job”. So I did my best at it. She was surprised I knew the first thing about it. But she was just waiting. So I did the first part of it. She comes over and tells me that something was wrong with the same job she did the day before and that mine was wrong. UUUGGGHH!!! She shows me one mistake and now at least I understand her standard. THEN she tells this guy that oversees this job that “She (me) had passed them, but then I showed her all the discrepancies and now she is going through them” I could have KILLED her. First of all in our line of work it is customary for the “TEAM” to give each other a heads up if there is a particularly difficult job. She knew ahead of time and courtesy would have dictated this. Plus she did not show me everything, she showed me one thing. That was how she interpreted this part of the standard.
Anyway, I don’t know what to do. Every time I make a mistake she goes to the boss who is never in the room. I don’t want to go to him because he depends on her for all his information. I tried to talk to him once and he stuck up for her in no uncertain terms. Now what do I do? Anyone know how to handle this professionally and still keep my job?
In this modern era, there are usually some “unfair dismissal” laws floating about, which require you to receive formal warnigs etc before you can be let go.
My advice is this - do everything by the book. Absolutely totally 100%.
Show up for work early. Take less than your allocated time on breaks etc. Don’t pop out for smoke breaks (if you’re a smoker that is). Present yourself in every respect as the model employee.
Under such circumstances, if your job was in peril after THAT, it would be pretty obvious to an impartial observer that your nemesis has personal issues.
But for now, just bite your toungue and fight the good fight.
Keep a log and advise HR.
Just a small point but if she’s training you and you screw up, this is her fault as much as it is yours - if she were training you properly, you wouldn’t screw up, would you?
Most companies I’ve worked for/with have a probationary period where if they don’t like you, they can let you go, no reason needed. Since the OP says 3 weeks, I’m sure this would fall into that type of situation.
The only real defense is to e-mail both your immediate supervisor and whomever it is you deal with in HR. A simple e-mail explaining the problem with no emotions involved and nothing that can be construed as trying to CYA. Perhaps a very civil e-mail about wanting to be trained by someone else or by another method since the method of training you is not proving effective. E-mail gives you documentation and leaving emotion out of it keeps it from looking like a clash between the two of you.
If you don’t feel like this will work for you, see if there is any possible way to have the person who is training you e-mail the instructions. Again, this goes to documentation. The person either has to tell you the correct way to do things or show herself to be the one in the wrong.
I’ve seen people literally have mental breakdowns at work due to trying to be the “model employee” and not get into trouble when someone is after them. It’s not worth it and it’s the reason companies have rules about conduct. Make the system work for you instead of trying fighting a losing battle.
That’s my advice after having dealt with several people just like the one you described.
(Sorry for any typos - my keyboard is dying on me).
Sorry to hear you are going through this. I went through this myself about six months ago (after starting I found out that the company had incredibly high staff turnover due to this person, and I left after six weeks). I don’t know where you are based and I’m in the UK, but all I can suggest is that The Long Road gave very good advice. Also, from personal experience:
Document, document, document.
Keep a log of everything. If she sends you instructions in an email print them out and keep them. Keep a pad and paper handy to write things down as they happen, then type your notes up at night. Keep the original notes as well.
One thing is if she is giving you instructions, type up her instructions and ask her to confirm them before you start. If she does, add the date and time she confirmed them to the bottom of the file.
Go to HR, and mention that there is a problem. It does help if you have your thoughts in order beforehand, so you can stay calm which can only help your case. You don’t necessarily have to tell them that you are logging everything, but mentioning that there is a problem with your interactions with that person is a good idea. (That’s how I found out I wasn’t the first person with a problem with her.)
If you can, get a free consultation with a lawyer to see their opinion of the case(the ambulance-chaser no-win, no-fee I spoke to pretty much begged for the case). They can tell you what to look out for in the person’s behaviour and any points to raise with HR which would strengthen your case.
Things might not improve immediately. My HR spoke to the boss of the person in question who stonewalled them, since he’d worked with the person in question for 8 years.
If she’s been there a while, you may be out of luck keeping the job if she is trying to get rid of you. However, if you get HR involved it does become more difficult for her as if you leave and they can’t prove they did everything to deal with the problem you can get them for unfair dismissal.
Good luck and best wishes.
Tirial
Excellent advice.
“You know, I’ve made so many errors here. Let’s go over these instructions once more, just to make sure I’m doing this right…”
Even if you don’t hang her it’ll keep her on her toes.
She obviously didn’t train you in the secret art of “using paragraphs”…
Ya, no shit, use paragraphs.
Sam
P.S.- Stop being a fucking wuss and talk tot he boss and explain things to him. Otherwise you’re liable to get the axe the way you’re going…
With regards to saving up evidence for wrongful termination, unfair dismissal, or probationary periods, I don’t know if the OP is in the US, but hereabouts pretty much every state is an “at-will” employment state. Which means you can be canned at almost any time for almost any reason. On the plus side, you can also quit at any time for any reason. Whoopee.
Ahh, the politics of work. Here’s what I’d do. I’d go to the big boss and tell him that the training you are receiving could be greatly improved if you had a training manual. Explain how it would be very helpful to new people to have standards and procedures written down for reference, as well as some concrete examples for guidance. Offer to help create this manual. I would also impress upon him that turnover could be reduced if new hires were given a peer coach to turn to if he/she had questions without fear that their questions would be turned against him/her at evaluation time. Also tell him that the support of management for new hires is essential for long term retention. Your goal and the boss’s goal is the same: for you to do a good job.
Good luck. You’re in a tricky spot.
Is her name Carla by any chance?
Seriously, I feel for you. I went through a very similar situation a few years ago, and I did end up losing my job after about a year of it.
The advice here is good - I wish I had taken it at the time. Keep logs, do everything 100% by the book, and try to speak to your boss or HR about the issues.
I was also uncomfortable going to her superiors about the situation as she was, like in your case, such a respected employee at the company, and since she was reporting all of my mistakes (as well as some of hers that she blamed on me) to her own boss, I very quickly got a reputation as a screw-up and I felt like anything I said in my defense would be taken as excuse-making. Not to mention the fact that she was working me 12 hours a day with no time for breaks or lunches, let alone pulling myself together for a meeting with the big bosses or writing up a report of my concerns.
I hope things work out for you!
Thank you all for your advice. But it seems that she won after all. I think the boss was the unlucky one. Today she demonstrated to me exactly what I think the problem was. She has no clue what she is doing. She is depending on others to come in and just do it because she doesn’t know how to train and she doesn’t know the standards.
Sorry about the run on words in the original post. I was very upset at the time and couldn’t imagine anyone would fault me for it when they could see that I was upset. Noone in here would kick a dog when they were down now would they?
In the long run I will be fine. I actually do think it’s for the better. I will never work for a woman again. Even though I am one.
And you obviously have been trained in the art of “being a dick.” :rolleyes:
sensualips, I’m happy to hear that it looks like everything will work out. Keep your guard up though 
Never work for a woman again? What do you mean by that?
Damn sensualips! You beat me to it.
I was going to ask if your work was overally technical or if it required specific and detailed knowledge/skill (explained badly but hope you know what I mean)
When I first left teaching and started work in a mathematical/statistical area, my boss was EXTREMELY respected all over the company. he was thought to be extremely knowledgeable and competent.
I, of course, believed it.
I kept going to him for advice on projects. His responses were very vague. I assumed he was be like ‘a teacher’ (I was just one 
) and trying to get me to think things through and was ‘guiding’ me in the right direction.
Things would turn out not right and I was starting to get a reputation as incompetent. I was certain that he was out to get me and that he didn’t want me fired. I went to his boss and his boss was more friendly then the one you talked to. He actually told me that my boss fought to get me hired and there was a more favored candidate but, because of my boss I was hired instead.
This left me very confused. It sure seemed like he wanted me gone.
I then noticed that his work seemed to have errors in it. I would ask him about it and he would be very standoffish but I would also notice he would correct it later.
Then one day, when I was asking for advice/help on a project and it hit me. HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING!
This hit me like a thunderbolt but it was true. A man very respected as knowledgeable and competent knew less than me about what we were doing.
Once I realized this, I took a more proactive approach with him and acted with confidence. I relaized I was on my own and relied on myself to figure out how to do things (which I liked). I kept his ruse safe. He then quickly grew to rely on me and things went very well from then on until I was eventually promoted out from under his supervision. The guy wasn’t a complete idiot - he just knew less than people thought, was good at faking it, got out of his depth and relied on other people to keep him afloat.
I was going to post this as a possibility to your situation. A long shot. Glad it turned out to be true.
I’m sorry Sensua, it’s hard to tell, but were you let go? And how did the boss get more unlucky than you?
Sam
P.S.-I wasn’t trying to kick a dog when it was down, but a lack of paragraphs makes thoughts hard to understand, and I really thought you should have gone to your boss long before now. I know it’s hard, had almost the same thing happen to me once long ago.
Yes Gawd, you are very insightful. I was let go today. he based it on her observations. As I was thinking about it, I remember correcting her many times in the beginning thinking I would show her I was qualified. Then I stopped when she began to get miffed.
Today she told me there is no difference between contamination and corrosion. This is what made me realize I was VERY lucky to get out of there.
BooBooFoo yes I was at-will so they could do anything. I was already a model employee. I always took only my breaks, had never been late or out, went in an hour early every day and weekends when they asked.
An example of her deviousness: She told the boss she wasn’t working on Saturday and that she might be in on Sunday. He asked her to call me to let me know when she would be in on Sunday. So I let my daughter have a girlfriend over Sat night. “She” called me on Saturday morning at 8:15 to let me know she was in and that we weren’t working on Sunday. (we only worked until noon on weekends). Sabotage.
HR wouldn’t have worked. She may not have been good at her job, but she was great at making others look bad.
Blinking Duck, you hit the nail on the head. If I had thought of that before it might have helped. Live and learn. Great story!
Gawd my boss was more unlucky because he put his trust in the wrong person.
I am lucky because I just got $3000 from taxes and unemployment. Now I have the time to find a much better job.
Thank you everyone for being there for me. I can’t wait to be an official Doper!
Just a quick note on at will employment: You can get let go for NO reason but not for BAD reasons. IE. you can get fired because it’s tuesday and they want to fire someone, but not because your an X (where X is some protected group). So telling HR that there was a problem and giving proof as to why you were being harassed by your trainer my have put you in a position to be a member of an X group. I couldn’t tell you if you are though.
C
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: while a law student I am not yet a lawyer, and I do not know the state you live in. This is the state of the law on the subject as I learned it, consult a lawyer, yada yada yada.
I think you mean that, absent a contract, you can be fired for good cause, bad cause or no cause. And it is illegal to fire you if the firing is a violation of law such as ADA, Title 7 etc.
Yes, in the long run you WILL be fine. You learned some valuable lessons from this, and got out of an intolerable situation before it took too great a toll on you. Consider yourself lucky – I spent several years working for a (male) Boss From Hell, and was in the middle of a nervous breakdown by the time I quit. (It took two editors and a part-time secretary to replace me, which should give you some idea.)
But, please, don’t attribute to all women bosses the evils of this cretin. Trust me, there are male bosses just as bad, and women who are a joy to work for.