TLDR: I have started a new job and no one seems interested in teaching me how to do it.
A couple of weeks into a new office job and I'm so pissed off with the lazy attitude they seem to have towards training.
People seem reluctant to train me and the team leader seems completely uninterested in me. Most days I have nothing to do, which would usually be a blessing, but in an office with strict control over phone use it quickly becomes boring. Any time I ask if there is anything I can do I am usually told there isn't and to just read through the notes I have made on the few occasions they have trained me. There seems to be no planning at all. I have asked my manager a few times if he has any training planned for that day and his reaction has been “I don't know”. Any training I have received has been more of a spur of the moment thing where they suddenly realise “oh, I could show you this thing if you like!”
I recently asked my manager for a meeting to discuss this and to see I could actually be trained on more things so that I am not stuck with nothing to do. He responded by telling me that he thinks my training has been so slow because I am very quiet and that the others in the office don't want to approach me to train me because of this. He has no evidence of this, it is just his 'theory'.
I was just speechless. I'm an introvert, and definitely quiet, but to use that to blame me for their failure to plan some proper training is insulting to me. Others in the office have been coming up to me and are acting friendly, so I don't think I'm putting them off.
He also accused me of never telling him that I had no work to do (I have multiple emails sent to him on days he was working from home that prove otherwise) and that I should be actively seeking out work from others instead of waiting to be trained by those who know how to do it already. I have actually been doing this already but my colleagues very rarely have anything to show me, especially because a few others in the office started just before I did and so only know so much themselves.
But, if my manager wants me to ask for work more often then that's what I'm going to do. Constantly. His email inbox is going to be filled with so many questions about work and asking if I can have more training that he is going to become sick of seeing my name pop up in his notifications.
I'd be interested to know if anyone has gone through something similar and how they dealt with it (other than quitting, though I'm tempted) or if anyone has any tips for dealing with the boredom. It's not like I'm actually looking forward to having lots of work to do, but anything to make the day go quicker would be welcome at this point.