I do a wide variety of tasks at the office. I like to think I do them all pretty well. One of the things I do that others think I do well is train people.

All I really do is share what I know. It’s akin to Alcoholics Anonymous – someone shared with me so I can do this better so now I’m sharing it with you. I may on occasion have to modify my message to be heard by someone who can’t relate to it a certain way or other but still share the same message. AA gave me that and I’ve been using it for quite a few years now.

It works for me with the people that have come into the office to be trained. I don’t lecture, or teach I share. I’ll sometimes say “this is the problem, and here is how I found a solution” and then show them how I did it. Action (that’s another thing I learned from AA), take the steps to show others how to get past an obstacle. This has worked time and time again.

But now I have a new problem.

I’m training someone who has all of my character defects. He’s stubborn, pouty, arrogant and easily frustrated when he doesn’t get his own way. UGH

I’ve tried encouragement, to which he rolls his eyes at. I’ve tried to be extra patient and explain step by step what has happened and why it happened… and he just sits there, pouting. He looks for any little thing that is out of the ordinary mundane and declares the whole thing a disaster.

I’d like to do horrible things to him – roll my eyes, pout, ignore him. ok, maybe not so horrible.

I can’t do that. My job, like it or not, is to help him succeed. I need him to be as knowledgable, speedy and accurate in my department as the rest of my team. I need him to be interested in insurance – which is hard enough – and then want to continue to be interested in insurance.

That’s a chore in itself with anyone that comes in (with a few exceptions), getting them interested enough in insurance to stick around and want to be part of a growing team of insurance professionals. That’s not really my job, but it’s an underlying principle I try to incorporate into what I do each day.

I’ve talked before about part of what I love about my job is the amount of work and activity we have to process in a day. When I interviewed for the job they told me there was no down time for internet hijinks or the like, and I nodded because all the interviews say that… but here it was true. I’m busy from the moment I get there until I go home and I thrive in that. Many past jobs left me hours and hours of down time that I had nothing to do… this I never run out of things to do and that keeps me happy at the office.

I don’t have time to browse Facebook or Twitter for the latest goings on, nor chat with my friends – I have work to do and it keeps me very very busy. My team seems to like the same amount of activity, it’s only when I get a trainee in that things get out of joint.

Dealing with my own character defects in another person is challenging – flaring them right back at him will accomplish nothing, he’ll learn nothing and we’ll be stuck. Can’t have that. So I have to change how I approach him see what works and doesn’t to get him to be more engaged.

Fun stuff and another trainee just a few weeks away from joining us.