Six months ago, a seemingly well-meaning boss at a small tech firm decided to take on the responsibility of overseeing new employee training. This boss, who we’ll call Steve, had been with the company for just over a year and had generally earned the respect of his team. However, his decision to oversee training turned out to be more of a disaster than anyone could have anticipated.
The story took a turn when the HR department announced they were hiring a new employee who was set to start at the end of July. This triggered a series of events that would highlight the complete lack of preparation on Steve’s part. As soon as the hiring announcement was made, HR contacted Steve to request updated training materials and procedures. What they got back, however, was nothing. Steve had made zero progress in the six months since he volunteered for the role.
Instead of focusing on the task at hand, Steve began sending out one-line emails and conducting half-hearted investigations into the historical issues surrounding their training program. His main goal seemed to be to gather some talking points to present to other officers, as if the entire situation was just another issue on a long list of problems needing to be addressed. The irony was palpable—everyone in the room had been fully aware that the lack of training was an ongoing issue. They just hoped it wouldn’t fall into their laps.
Following this frustrating period, Steve pulled in the most senior person in the department, looking to delegate the training program to them. However, that person declined, noting that they were unfamiliar with the proprietary software that the training would need to cover. This led Steve to then ask the senior manager who, of all people, knew the software best, which was where the trouble really started.
Our narrator—let’s call them Alex—was then called into a meeting with Steve and the senior manager. It quickly became apparent that Steve wanted Alex to produce a procedural manual covering the company’s software, a daunting task considering it contained over 3,000 functions. Steve’s expectations were unrealistic; he wanted to know what it would take to have this manual completed in just six weeks. Alex knew that to do this properly would require dropping all other responsibilities, potentially taking six months or more.
When Alex expressed these concerns, the response was not encouraging. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Steve insisted. “We want it to look professional with pictures and flowcharts and even a photo of me.” The absurdity of the request was sinking in—Steve was basically asking for a comprehensive training manual without acknowledging the time and effort it would truly take to create it.
Alex could already envision the aftermath of this project. Any flaws in the training program would surely fall back on them. Since Steve had never used the software, there would be an avalanche of feedback directed at Alex when the new employee inevitably encountered problems. It was an unappealing scenario, to say the least.
Faced with this situation, Alex pushed back. “Training procedures are part of HR’s responsibilities, and frankly, this project is outside the scope of my job,” they stated. However, this was met with disapproval. Steve and HR didn’t want to hear it; they insisted that since HR also didn’t use the software, they were not equipped to take on the task of creating the manual. In an ironic twist, this led them to begin an “investigation” into job roles and descriptions to figure out where the gaps lay in ensuring effective training.
Now, with additional layers of bureaucracy added to the mix, the situation became even more convoluted. Steve seemed to prefer passing the buck rather than taking charge and finding a solution. Meanwhile, Alex, who was doing their best to uphold their own workload, was stuck in the middle of a chaotic mess they never signed up for.
At the core, it was a frustrating reminder of how responsibility can get mismanaged in corporate environments, often with no clear end in sight. Alex was left wrestling with the absurdity of it all, wondering why processes had to be this way in a company that had so much potential.
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