The Worst Job Training Ever

No wonder we all quit.

Job #32 involved the worst excuse for training I've ever experienced. Two hundred employees were squeezed into a sweltering room at a mall, and forced to listen to the managers for hours at a time. The managers, meanwhile, had no syllabus, hand-outs, reading materials, or clue. They stood up one at a time and talked about whatever popped into their head. Only a handful of us had brought a pen or paper to take notes. When they finally did hand out a pen and paper, we were told we were not allowed to write on the paper as it was a test we would need at the end of the training in a week.

The oblong room was not conducive to sounds, so only those in the very front rows could hear anything. When those in the back asked the managers to repeat themselves, the managers grew frustrated and started making fun of the non-hearers, or else refusing to repeat themselves, stating, "Come to the front if you can't here." (The seats in the front were all taken--we couldn't ALL sit there.)

Most ridiculous of all is that we were required to learn the menu items and ingredients for everything menu item, but were not provided with a copy of the menu or ingredient list. Instead, we were given a menu so out-of-date that half the items were no longer offered, and none of the 30+ new items were listed--something we didn't realize until a number of us took the test wrong, based on misinformation.

Eventually, all this became a major factor in why many of us quit. Those that remained performed very poorly during the two opening weeks I stuck around.

Check out part two my series on How to Motivate Employees: Train New Employees Effectively.