Almost There

At SBLB, we are issued a very large training manual, which is said to contain all information necessary to enable us to properly deal with our customers. This manual is comprised of about a dozen sections containing detailed information on how to complete various transactions and maitenence on customer accounts. It's thicker than both of the Bibles I own, although I guess that's not a very accurate comparison since the manual is standard-weight paper with wider margins and--

Okay, what?

Anyway, since there is no really good and/or effective way to learn this information interactively without boring the shit out of the trainees while simultaneously catering to each of our nine individual learning styles, they just don't bother trying to do so. Our trainer, Karen, a 61-year-old woman who has been in the banking industry for over two decades, reads aloud to us. Each page of the manual, word for word.

Needless to say, when I occasionally look around the room, it is not uncommon to see four of the nine of us with droopy heads and closed eyes, sleeping soundly to the constant drone of Karen's shrill voice.

When I was at Big Bank, we'd have each trainee read a section aloud and discuss the information as necessary. This is essentially no different, as you're still being read to the majority of the time, but at least it varied a bit. And if you were especially bored that day, you could just volunteer to read a lot. Furthermore, at Big Bank, most of my fellow trainees were intelligent, articulate people who were both comfortable with and competent at reading out loud.

Here, at SBLB, two of the trainees speak a language other than English primarily and if I didn't read along with them when it was their turn, I would have no idea what they were saying. It's not that their accents were too difficult to understand, because they were fairly well-spoken, but when reading a language other than your native one from fifteen feet away while simultaneously trying to comprehend the material, it's common for these two trainees (whose names Karen still can't pronounce) to say something like "translate" instead of "transaction"while reading.

Then there are a couple of the other trainees who, obviously having spoken English throughout their entire lives, read choppily and can't pronounce words more than 7 letters long, or misread a comma to be a period and screw up the entire paragraph and make it even more difficult to understand. It's reminiscent of high school and the lack of literacy that runs rampant in an inner-city public school system.

So, imagine my relief and utter joy when we finished the last page of the book this afternoon.

Now we're on to more hands-on learning on our computers, looking up and servicing "test accounts."

This would be fine, if it weren't for Karen having apparently touched a computer for the first time somewhere around late 2006, asking me if I was sure I double-clicked on a link when the system I was logging into was taking longer than usual to respond. I didn't bother telling her that you don't need to double-click on a link, and that you don't have to move your mouse to the scroll bar if you have a scroll button on your mouse.

Three more days left, then on to the phones, where we take calls with a few other trainers and supervisors/helpers assisting us.

I never thought this would come out of my mouth, but I cannot wait to get on the phones.