Dullards

Despite the undisputed fact that most of our current staff are vastly more intelligent that those we had a year or two ago, it's depressing to realise that even they need babysitting.

This week we have no deadlines, so I'm supposed to be training a bunch of them. Production today and tomorrow, Editorial Thursday and Friday. Those in Production who wanted training - had asked for training, in fact - were told on Friday that they needed to think about what training they needed or wanted so I could help them out this week...

...And so I was sat around doing my own work - I always have something to do, but this week I can easily put it aside when required - until after lunch before any of them even casually mentioned training, and that was to arrange something for tomorrow. After some cajoling from above, a couple more came up with a few things they wanted further training in, most of which would be no bloody good to anyone (why, on God's green Earth, would one actually want to export paths from Photoshop to Illustrator in our line of work?). Even when they said they wanted specific training, they weren't specific, so I ended up on some vague, rambling 'lesson' that they'll probably have forgotten by tomorrow.

I can confidently predict that the one who asked for more detailed training in a couple of things (because the training she received in the basics of Photoshop was supposedly very useful to her) probably won't get round to making time for any training, despite pointedly asking for some of my time just last week.

Honestly, I'm there if they want training, but I will not drag them into training they've asked for. It's also very frustrating that these people moan that they're being asked to do more than ever before, and yet ask to be shown how to do still more. Are they overworked or not?

Elsewhere, a couple of canny salespeople asked if our underworked designers could knock up some sales tools for their upcoming features... only to find that the meetings intended to work out exactly how to pitch the features aren't happening until later in the week. This means that nothing can be done on these sales tools until after the meeting, by which time we'll all be gearing up for the first deadlines of next week.

Sheer stupidity.