Perpetual Ruminations

Thursday

One day off for the week, and it's about over. Not that it was actually a day off, since I had to do quite a bit of work today, but it was a day I was scheduled to be off, and I didn't get paid for anything I did today. Well, not directly. We are training a new guard, but she isn't new, she worked for us last summer, so it's more of a refreshing than anything. But, the store we work at needs her to complete the training session and test, even if she did work for us last summer.

There was also a lot of paperwork that needed to get taken care of, and some of it needed to be done today. I did the major part on Wednesday after we met and talked a bit. But some of the stuff had to wait until she came in to train today. That meant I had to come in and finish up the paperwork. The idea was to come with with Rhonda, hang out and do some of the stuff I had left to do, meet with the rehire and get things started, then head home and enjoy the afternoon. Only the store manager I had talked with on Wednesday didn't work until later this afternoon.

He also did not tell the manager training in that we had a rehire coming in, and she had no clue what to do. So, knowing how things work, I took over and started her with some of the basics, like a yard walk. Once back at the guard shack, Rhonda took over the training, or at least would have if she had time. But she didn't have time, she had a semi at the out gate waiting for paperwork, and a line forming behind. I started going over things with the trainee and helped with the in gate. Soon enough the confusion was straightened out and the gates were clear and I went back in to send some faxes, get the paperwork for the training session, and a training invoice.

I knew that one of the regular managers would be on now, so I intended to get the stuff, and then head out. I sent the faxes, made some copies, and talked to her about the training checklist and the training invoice. She didn't know much about the training process and it took a little while to get things set up. Seems only the operations manager is up to par on the training and has not trained any of the other managers in on it. But, we had enough to get things done, so I went back out, and there was another mess at the guard shack. Yard traffic was backed up, in traffic was backing up, and it looked like mass confusion back there.

Rhonda was trying to get one mess straight, and the trainee was trying to assist but the one scanner was in use and the other had froze up. So, even though I wasn't actually working, I went out and started clearing invoices. But, since the scanner was not working I could not scan them out, instead I had to go back to the old system of writing everything down on the invoice, if the guest would let me keep it. One wouldn't, so it would have taken even longer to call the invoice in and clear it over the radio with the store manager. Especially since she was training in herself.

Luckily Rhonda was now free and could scan this ticket with her scanner while I took care of a few other guests, and in a few minutes we had the line moving and soon the gate area was clear. Now it was just a matter of going over what the training checklist had for us to do out at the guard shack. Rhonda does the training, and has for quite some time now, so I thought she knew all this. But when I mentioned it, she had no idea what I was talking about.

Again, the store management is suppose to keep us updated on policy changes and procedures,  but had not. I had read through the policy and procedure book quite often, and still do, since it gets updated about once a month. I had read some information in there, that had to do with training, but no one had updated Rhonda, our training person. She had trained a couple of guards in since the changes had been made, so I can only assume that the store management is not up to date with the policy changes, either.

It's all kind of confusing, but as long as we get the person trained and able to work, the store management can deal with their own problems and politics, it is no concern of mine. And, we know how to train and what to teach, so it will work out fine. The only problem was, the amount of time I ended up being on site. It should have been a half hour, maybe an hour at the most. But with all the confusion, the problems at the guard shack, and the heavy traffic today, I didn't get back home until after two this afternoon, three and a half hours later.

So much for my day off...