Chapter 44: I'm Not Complaining

I had the worst trainee in the history of the world. Back in November or December I thought I had a hard time with these two boys that were promotional trains, but this girl last night actually topped both of them combined. It still amazes me how on earth she got through the interview process and her hiring specialist actually thought she could be a cashier. Believe it or not being a cashier takes a certain maturity level, I know, I was a little shocked at this too, I didn’t realize until I started training that some people really should just be courtesy clerks (baggers). So, oh crap, this story involved a new character who may show up more so I have to think up a name for him…Rookie? I don’t know, he’s young, he himself may lack the maturity to train but he’s a nice kid, so I’ll cut him slack, and after last night he owes me steak dinner. So, Rookie was facilitating the class last night (I had already been there since 10:30 that morning) and he has a full time job during the day for the summer, and he was really tired. I told him to suck it up and teach the class, not in those words, but he was teaching, I had already done my stint. So he teaches the classroom portion and then he comes up to me during break and asks me if I will do the lab part because he felt like he was “losing himself” not in the dramatic he no longer knows who he is and was falling by the wayside of sin, but in the, “I have no idea if what I am saying is making sense anymore”. I look at the meager group of 4 and since that morning I had a group of 7 and it went without a hitch I figure I can help Rookie out. I agree and my first hint that this might not be a good idea was the fact that I had trouble getting the four of them to follow me to the register lab. Finally got them in though and I began the lab. Right from the start the group was too loud and I couldn’t tell who it was being too loud, if just one or a couple of them, I mentioned that this group was a little A.D.D. tonight (don’t know if I’m allowed to say that as a trainer but there are a lot of rules I may have broken last night). My group of 7 earlier in the day had been so polite and quiet and learning everything and really they were a godsend because this week it was just Rookie and me for the beginning of the week and since Rookie has that other job I didn’t have a second trainer to help me in the morning class. Two of us didn’t seem like enough in the evening class. I finally get through some basics but then, I don’t know, let’s call her…The Infinitesimal Brain starts hitting all the buttons, like that’s kosher! Then she starts playing with all the mock groceries. Might I add here that every time you hit a button on the register in the lab it makes a small beep sound. So it was *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*, which is what I felt like saying, but I touched my ice cold hands to cool off my burning face and at one point started walking towards the door and said, “I can’t take it! I’m out of here!” But then the look of panic on Rookie’s face made me turn around and laugh it off, even though my face was probably the same shade as a tomato. So I think my near nervous breakdown got everyone to chill out, except The Infinitesimal Brain, she just kept going. She had the valley girl accent, so if you know what I’m talking about picture that in your head. I don’t knooww, like, it’s, kindaaa, like, sloweerr than most people. And sometimesss, words like drag out a little longeerr than normall and there are weird…pauseess. So many spell check errors in that last sentence, but I don’t know how to write a dragged out word.
About thirty minutes into the lab portion of class she is slouching over her register and saying, “Gosh! I can’t stand this long!” Everyone kind of just looked at her and I said, “You’ve got to stand a whole lot longer during work.”
“Oh my gosh! Are you serious!?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“It’s so long.”
Airhead! It’s not as if the work requirements weren’t covered with her, during the interview and Tuesday in class, the whole part where you need to be able to stand for at least 4 hours, and lift 50 pounds, and if you can’t do these you can’t really do the job. Rookie and I kept making faces at each other and I told him that he owed me one and after a little while longer I told him that he owed me something big. I decided what he owed me later that night while I was leaving a voicemail for TDH with his test scores I started to tell him about The Infinitesimal Brain and told him that Rookie owed me dinner so he should come and we would talk about it.
I’m just too tired to even write about her. Needless to say we failed her despite a good test score and part of me wishes I had taken her out of class and told her to pack up her stuff and go home and we would be in touch. But at the time I didn’t realize I could do that.