Famous Last Words: Training People

I'm tired too. [source]

I’ve started to train people at my job.

I love my job, I really do, and I have come to realize that I’m the sort of person that gains a lot of satisfaction from a job well done. Hence, why I loved my job at a fast food restaurant and a shoe store, despite the fact that it didn’t really give me any experience in my chosen career field or any other advantage other than providing me with pocket money. This all changed with my current job – I love it and I gain a lot of satisfaction from a doing a good job, and I also gain medical experience.

However, this training people thing – it’s making me go a little crazy. At the end of the day, I do like it, and I feel like it helps me learn even more, having to explain all sorts of things to the little trainees.

But man! Now, after every shift, I feel so exhausted and worn out. I have never talked so much during a shift before, my own voice is starting to annoy the hell out of me. I also have a very low reserve of patience, and this is really making me expand my horizons and strengthen up my weaknesses, but also sometimes, since I’ve used up all my patience at work, I have none left for the rest of the world.

It’s also harder when you just don’t have any specific, good, practical advice for a trainee when there’s something they need to work on. Part of getting better comes with experience and just being better – which is very, very vague advice to give someone.

I should probably listen to my own advice though, and realize that I’ll get better with more experience, since I am a new trainer. I just hope I’ll get better at communicating what I do/how I do it/and why I do it, not only for my own job satisfaction, but also the trainee’s experience.