I’m a new hire in a large hardware store. It’s my first day working without a trainer answering for me, but instead just shadowing me.

Trainer: “You’ve been trained in most of the departments, so you should be able to handle most customer queries.”

Within a minute, a customer comes up to me and asks:

Customer: “How do I build a house?”

I could not come up with a response. My trainer jumped in and said:

Trainer: “With tools. Aisle seventeen.”

After the customer leaves:

Trainer: “Well, I said most customer queries, I didn’t say all.”

This story reminded me of a similar situation I encountered teaching at a high school:

I am a professor at a community college and often have dual enrollment students: high schoolers taking college classes for advanced credit. I really enjoyed having them in my classroom, finding them engaged, mature, and eager to learn.

Administration had the bright idea to expand dual enrollment by having college professors go to high schools to teach the classes, instead of the other way around. This way, more students could take advantage of the program, and professors were told to teach the high school classes as though they were the same as any other college class. Like most administrative decisions in higher education, this program sounded good on paper but didn’t work in real life!

Every day revealed a new problem in the system. How would students get their textbooks? How could they turn in their homework if high schools don’t use the same online learning program? Will high schoolers be given collegiate email addresses? If not, how could I communicate with them? What should I do when half the class is out for a band trip, and a test was scheduled for that day? 

Not to mention, there’s a huge dynamic shift between a couple of overachieving high schoolers in a room of college students, versus a whole classroom of teenagers, only a few of whom actually want to learn. It was exhausting.

One memorable incident happened when I was in the middle of teaching and suddenly a siren sounded, and a bright light started blinking.

Me: “What the heck is that?”

Student: “I think it’s a fire drill?”

Naturally, the school never informed me of any scheduled fire drills, nor did I have any idea what the school’s procedure would be, since I wasn’t a high school employee. So, I took the program at its word and treated the students as though they were on a college campus:

Me: “…RUN!”

Cue a mad scramble for the door and a cluster of giggling high schoolers sprinting through the hallways. A few students wandered off, mumbling that they were going to use the bathroom.

The majority of us made our way to the back of the building and wandered onto the football fields. There I found a number of students and teachers, all organized into neat rows and headed by teachers with their arms full of folders, each holding a bright green piece of laminated construction paper over their heads. 

Meanwhile, all of my students are just kind of wandering around aimlessly, chatting with their friends and looking at their phones. Someone important-looking (the principal, I guess) stalked over and confronted me:

Principal: “Is this everyone in your class?”

Me: “Um, I think so?”

Principal: “Where’s your roster?!”

Me: “It’s in the classroom.”

Principal: “Why didn’t you bring it with you?”

Me: “Should I have?”

Principal: “And where’s your card?”

Me: “Card? What card?”

Principal: “The emergency cards! Green if everyone is present, red if someone is still unaccounted for. Don’t you remember your training?”

Me: “I didn’t get any training! I don’t work here! I teach at [College]!”

The principal was practically blowing steam out of her ears at this point, but fortunately, she walked off and left me alone. After a few minutes, everyone was dismissed to go back to their classrooms. I can’t guarantee that everyone actually came back, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of the rowdier kids snuck off to their cars and left.

Thank heavens, that whole program only lasted one semester, and I never again had to travel to a high school to teach my class.

I’m a new hire at a call center, doing basic troubleshooting for cellphones back when iPhone 7 was the newest one. Our lines officially closed about ten seconds ago, but we still got one call in juuuust before the cutoff. We can’t get up and leave until the call is resolved. 

I’ve been troubleshooting with this caller, who seems to be the most technophobic person I have ever spoken to.

My trainer is sitting with me, listening in to my calls with his headset.

Me: “Okay, so to go to your home screen. You just need to press the ONE big button on your phone.”

Caller: “What are you talking about? I see a big red one with the picture of a phone on it. That one?”

My trainer stretches and grabs his jacket from behind his seat.

Me: “No, don’t press that one or you’ll hang up on me. This one is BELOW the touch screen. The ONLY physical button you have on the front of the phone, you know, the big circle button that reads your fingerprint?”

Caller: “Oh, okay, yeah, I see it.”

My trainer stands up and puts his jacket on. This is odd, as we still have a lot of work to do to resolve this caller’s issue.

Me: “Okay, press that for me.”

Caller: *Click.*

Trainer: *Removing his headset.* “Every single time. Have a nice weekend!” *Leaves.*

He knew three sentences ago that the caller was going to do that…

I have just started the training for my current job. For reasons I can’t remember, our teacher chose to inform us that he and his wife had chosen not to procreate by saying:

Teacher: “All my children have four legs and tails.”

I have no idea where it came from, but I spat out without stopping to think:

Me: “Jesus, I’d hate to see what your wife looks like.”

My class burst out laughing, teacher included. He went a little hard on me the next couple of days, but was a good sport in general. We had a lot of fun in that class, and a big part of that was all the s***-slinging.

I’m getting ready to go out on vacation for a week and a half. When I did this last year, I tasked two members of my team with covering the things I did while I was gone (I’m the lead, not a manager). 

One of them has since gone to another team, and the other has been slightly less diligent about her work lately, so I’m training another team member in some of the more intense tasks I do on a day-to-day basis.

She’s… not the easiest person to get along with, at least not when you’re telling her she doesn’t know everything. She’s kind of passive-aggressive at times, but I’m limited in what I can do because the last time I raised the issue of her behavior with management, she claimed that she “just matches energy” and the acting manager at the time basically told me that as a lead, it’s my responsibility not to give her any bad energy to “match”.

Luckily, my current manager has this team member’s number.

Me: “Hey, [Manager], I just set up daily training with [Clerk] for the next two weeks. I added you as optional, but—”

Manager: “—No, I can’t be in the room with her. I like my job.”