Importance of Training and Troubleshooting

One thing I have realized is that training is very important. This is where you show your new employee how to do their job. They should learn every possible obstacle they might run into and how they can handle it. Even if they haven't been trained for a certain situation, once they complete training they should learn how to improvise by then. What I have learned about the job I just finished is that there is not enough training for employees. When I started Media Support Services for the library, I learned how to check a room which is basically making sure podiums work in the classrooms. What they do not teach you is what kind of problems you might run into if a classroom is not functioning. A few of the employees and I already knew electronics quite well, but others were pretty much clueless. I learned how to fix most problems by asking others above me. If I went to a classroom and didn't know how to fix it I'd either tell the teacher it'd be fixed later or tell our technician to come there depending on how serious it was. I basically taught myself and was ready for almost any problem when I came to a classroom.

Now when a teacher has a problem with the equipment in the room they call us. What were suppose to do is try to talk to them and try to trouble shoot them through the problem, but this almost never happens. Most of the workers that answer the phone do not know how to fix anything so they ask the people who have worked there longer. This is a problem that can be solved by teaching troubleshooting in training. Many of the problems we receive can be fixed with to pushes of a button. When you have workers who don't know that it requires others to go out and fix problems that aren't as important as something else that might be going on. If an employee knows all the possible problems that can go wrong it saves time and manpower.

The Whole Run Around

It has been a while since I have been on a plane, but even with that being said I can never understand why airports give their customers a whole 'run around'. My father and I had decided to take a trip to Texas. We had never been there and we were wanting to visit family there as well. Going to Texas was not too bad, from Richmond anyway. It seemed that when we finally reached our layover stop in Atlanta, GA things got worse. When we reached GA, my father realized that the number on our ticket was not the same as the one listed on the board. I thought maybe the board was wrong, so we decided to go by what the ticket had printed on it and we went to the gate in a prompt fashion. All of a sudden, five minutes before our next flight, we noticed no one was moving or rushing to board the plane. This I *knew* was not normal, and when I went and asked the lady behind the desk where is the flight to Dallas, she said this was not the right gate and we had to take the concourde back to where we first started! In a rush, my dad and I flew back on the concourde and ran to the gate, but to our bad luck, we missed the flight. The next attendant was nice enough to book us another flight and told us where to go. When we arrived at that location, another attendant told us this was wrong and that we had to go somewhere else. I at this point was getting really fusterated, why was there no clear communication going on? Why do these attendants not communicate with themselves to know which gate would take passengers to Dallas? I felt that if this is one huge airport with so much technology, why couldn't anyone tell us where to go? None of them were on the same page. Luckily, we found the right gate at the end and made it to Dallas, Texas.

Coming back to Richmond was another crazy ride. We left fairly early in the morning. As I arrived at the Texas airport, I had held my ticket along with my Dad's ticket, forgetting to give his ticket to him seperately. The police officer checking the tickets let me through and then my father, but this random lady behind us started yelling at the police officer that my dad and I were up to something and that I should not be allowded to board the plane until we were fully checked. Then all of a sudden, two police officers came and started checking us and making sure we were clean. Then this woman had the nerve to come and tell me that she was trying to protect everyone at this airport and she just gave me a lot of attitude for nothing. I felt like she could have communicated herself better to me instead of giving me attitude and yelling in my face. The police officers as well had nothing to say and did not even communicate to me about why this search was happening. All in all, it was not a fun trip, atleast not the airport part. I can say though in the end, I was just glad to be back in Richmond.

Where's the Manager?

A few years ago, I was an assistant manager for a very small retail store in the area. the store manager left and I was still running the store, scheduling employees, handling the recruiting and hiring process, and maintaining store productivity and sales, among other things. The ladies we had employed with us were very motivated, driven, and always went an extra mile with our clients. As a team we maintained the store very well in both sales and customer service.

Finally after a few months, our company hired a store manager. The new manager came in and was a bit of a shock to our current employees. She was very firm, strict, and was not very friendly at first, to name a few. I had a couple meetings with the manager and expressed my concern and the concern of our employees. Surprisingly enough she eventually eased up a little bit on us. I’m not sure if she just came in the way she did, wanting to make sure that we were going to play the game her way or what. But it is what it is. Soon enough, things soon began to get better in the store, and we were all adjusting to the new personalities in the store. We all began to get along better and didn’t have any problems.

However, after a few months had passed I got some devastating news. My uncle had passed away over night from a brain aneurism. He was only 41 and had 7 children between the ages of 4 and 16. I was pretty close to my family and was completely shocked and needed to get up to Pennsylvania as soon as possible. I discussed this with the manager and we agreed that the next day I would be able to leave and take a long weekend, so that I could be with my family. I was going to work until 1pm that day and the new manager would come in to relieve me so I could finally leave.

The manager never showed up for work. I called her cell phone and couldn’t find her. Her mother ended up calling the store looking for her. So I got really scared and concerned for her. Her boyfriend then came up to the store looking for her and said they had gotten in an argument the evening before. He was bringing her back her cell phone, only she wasn’t at the store. So after he left, I called her mother back and explained what had just happened and wanted to know if I should call the police. She said, no that she had spoken to her daughter and she was just having issues with a boyfriend (the guy who came into the store) and she was fine but wasn’t sure when she would return to work.

So after my anxiety had just escalated to the highest point possible I got extremely upset that she was apparently having “boyfriend problems.” This manager failed to call the store, me, her colleagues, the district manager, and her mother to let them know where she was. I contacted our district manager and told her my situation. She said to have another employee come in, she was sending down a manager from Georgetown and to get my “butt” in Pennsylvania. Thank goodness she was such a great and understanding DM.

To this day I’m not really sure what happened or what the manager was doing. But she never called the company after she failed to show up to work and without explanation. She did call me a few weeks later and said she didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to take some personal time and that she was sorry. I’m not a hateful person so of course I accepted her apology and hoped she was okay. But I still felt it was completely disrespectful and didn't understand why she couldn't just call me to explain. So many highs and so many lows in such a short period, really took a toll on me. Yeah, that was one hell of a trip. But I went to Pennsylvania late that evening. In reality, getting to my family was my main concern and I got there… eventually.

Lacking Communication

I've been a student at VCU for about 5 1/2 years now, and I always seem to have very bad academic advisers. In undergrad, the advisers were graduate students. I thought this was a horrible idea because the accountability for errors was not appropriate. Every time I visited the advising office, I met with a different person, and they were all telling me something different. When it was time for me to graduate, I went to the advising office to get some paperwork completed and a gentleman told me that I would not be able to walk in the Spring graduation because I needed three more classes. I thought I only needed one, which I was already planning on taking in summer school. However, the last two times I vistied the advising office, my transcripts were not reviewed properly, and the advisers overlooked the fact that I needed two extra classes. Can you imagine the rage that I was feeling at that time?

So, after talking to several people and explaining the whole situation, I got that taken care of. Now, I'm in grad school and experiencing some of the same issues, except this time around, I'm spending a few extra thousand dollars, so I expect even better service from VCU faculty and staff. However, that is not the case. I've been emailing my new adviser for months to set up an appointment to discuss graduation requirements and scheduling. She has not responded and I'm entering my second year of grad school. These are critical times!

I'm trying to communicate with her so I can avoid experiencing what I did in undergrad when it's time to walk. Lacking communication can cause major problems. I've learned recently that even though one party is trying to be proactive and communicate effectively, the other party must still meet them halfway in order for the efforts to be successful. Hopefully, everything will work out in my favor, and I will never have to stress about VCU again.

When You Cannot Always Get What You Want

Working in any environment where there are many cultures present can have its advantages and disadvantages. In many situations, it is seen as a good thing to have many cultures represented in your company. It shows that your company values diversity and change. It also conveys the message that no one in this country should be stopped or not tolerated with just because of their religion or ethnic background.

A situation did however occur in the hospital. As you know, a hospital is an environment which homes many different backgrounds but all of the people there, whether they are from America or India have one thing in common: medicine. Their goal, as with any person in the healthcare profession is to help people and to make them better. A patient came to the hospital to schedule an appointment to get a check up done and as they were being scheduled for their date and time, they began to ask who their doctor was and how qualified this doctor was. As the receptionist was transporting the credentials of the doctor to the patient; the patient then asked, “Is this doctor Middle Eastern? , because if so then I do not want to be seen from someone that has come from that country”. The receptionist did mention that he was the best doctor they had and cared a lot for his patients, but this patient would not think otherwise and decided that either he wanted a white doctor or he would leave to another practice. Lucky for him, this practice did inhibit two other doctors who were from the white race, so he went to that doctor and both parties were fine.

I found this to be rude because what difference would it have made where this doctor was from? He has no intent to hurt you; he wants to help you, as he does with all of his patients. I think the base of it all is that it shouldn’t matter where one is from, but how you contribute to society. I’m very confident that this Middle Eastern doctor could have done just as good or an even better job as his white colleague. What also comes into play is how the media may have twisted this patient’s judgment on what sort of person the Middle Eastern doctor may be. Since these days, the media seems to be very influential on every race in this society. I found this to be an ineffective way of communication and thought; and the only way to change that is for that person to change themselves to better understand the other cultures that are trying to live in harmony with everyone else’s culture.

Training vs. Communication

I work for a variety of engineers and designers in the civil engineer field as an administrative assistant. Before I was employed with this company, I worked in Retail Sales Management. So needless to say, this was a completely different work environment for me. Everything seemed to be going fairly well, and I really had enjoyed working for this firm and gaining the work experience from this position.

The second year I was employed with this company, our accounting department decided to change our accounting system to a more efficient program. I, along with numerous other administrative assistants were very confused as how this system was to work and there were some "so-called" training workshops offered. In reality, most of the functions and capabilities of this program, we taught ourselves. It seemed to work, and our accounting department was always willing and able to assist with any demonstrations or questions we had, which was a great relief due to a large amount of pressure coming from the project managers. As anything else in life, people do not like changes and the "positive" feedback from our newly implemented program quickly came to a halt. Numerous employees were complaining, stating their administrative assistant was not trained appropriately, etc. Therefore, our HR department discussed the issues with our administrative team and decided to have an on-site training day. The HR manager sent an email to all department heads stating that the administrative assistants would be in training with our accounting program and not available, yet to contact our interns for any immediate assistance. No further detail was given in the email regarding the depth of training. Our training was actually an "intro" to our accounting program and really did not benefit our administrative team any more than what we had already been doing.

One of my sector leaders demanded that I execute a highly detailed report for his department that I did not have access to. I responded that we were not trained in any of these functions, and this is a report that our accounting department would have to complete. He responded to me in a hostile way, "You were in training all day and should know how to do this." After numerous complaints directed toward me, in front of other employees I set up a private meeting with our HR Manger. I explained the situation, what the sector leader was asking for and how I was treated. Our HR Manager didn't even know how to compile this requested data and called in head of accounting. After explaining to our head of accounting he had confirmed that accounting would need to compile this information, although it would not be exact. For a final meeting, I met with the head of accounting as well as the sector leader, who then became frustrated with the outcome and soon began to spread negativity of this program throughout his department. I received support from the HR Manager as well as head of accounting, although I felt let down and insulted from the sector leader. I'm not sure what I should have done differently.

Thankfully, after edits and updates of our accounting program, and more experience with the numerous functions, we are now able to achieve personalized, detailed reports specific to each sector leaders needs. Though there was miscommunication, hostility, and frustration being performed on a continuous basis, our team finally agreed to work together, and now our sector leaders have achieved the appropriate information and that is the most important thing.

Keeping Your Cool

I work at VCU’s Media Support Services (MSS). Our job is to make sure all technology in classrooms such as overheads, computers, and data projectors are functioning properly for teachers and students. We are stationed in the library and have kiosks in the Temple, Harris, and Hibbs building so we can reach classrooms with problems in a reasonable time. About a month ago my co-worker Brandon and I were called to the Harris building, because a teacher was having a problem with his VCR. When we looked at the VCR everything was hooked up correctly so we decided to get a new VCR for him, which he agreed to. Before we left he stressed how he had to show this video and if he didn’t he would be severely behind, which is when I could tell he was an impatient one. Our policy is that they must go themselves and switch it out at the library. I thought that would interrupt his class and he would become even more frustrated if we told him this. After we got the new VCR, Brandon and I hook everything up again and it still didn’t work so we figured the problem was inside the podium. We told him that would require our technician coming out since we did not have the keys to fix it. After hearing this he cancelled class and became very frustrated with us once all his students left.
I quickly realized this was going to be a problem, because he looked like he was going to explode and my friend Brandon has a short temper. The teacher starts raising his voice saying “EVERYTHING SHOULD JUST WORK I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT SHOULD JUST WORK.” Brandon says were sorry sir we should have this fixed before your next class, but if not your going to need a new classroom. He replied “Will you guys do that?” we said “No, that’s not our job; you’ll have to speak to the head of your department.” He then yells “I am the head of my department.” After that Brandon gave me a look like he was going to get disrespectful and while the teacher packed his things I quietly told Brandon not to speak to him anymore. I then said in a calm voice sir we will most likely have this fixed in a short time, just leave your e-mail and your cell number so we can contact you as soon as possible so you can arrange a new room if you must. He then complained saying he shouldn’t have to do all this for another ten minutes and I told him getting mad at us wasn’t going to help anything. He apologized and said he was sorry, but he was frustrated and basically wanted to let his steam out on someone. I told him it was ok and I was sorry about his class and that I would contact him as soon as possible. After he left, the technician came, and sure enough a wire was unplugged inside the podium. I called the teacher and let him know we fixed the problem and everything would be fine for his next class and he said thank you. In this situation I think I did a good job of calming both my co-worker and the customer. I decided to take over the situation, because I know I’m good at talking with people who are frustrated and I realized us going back and forth with him was not going to make the VCR work. I believe an employee should keep their cool at all times as hard it maybe and if they can’t that is when you remove yourself from the situation before it gets out of hand.