Mandatory training videos, you say?

If you want to move up, congratulations: your department will soon have an opening for a new department head.

Please keep us updated it sounds like big boss is about to get his ass reamed

I did that with training videos at a retail store i used to work at. I was promoted to a store tech, and my store manager kindly informed me that I should be setting examples for training videos and be ahead of the game when it came to being trained, and that I was to make this a priority. We were authorized to get 15 minutes of extra pay per video watched (they were usually about 10-15 minutes, so it was reasonable).

Most of them were total BS, and i just went about doing my real job, being busy, until a month later, my manager strongly informed me that I needed to do them. Being the keener I was... i sat down over an entire weekend, and queued up multiple video clients in multiple browsers and proceeded to watch all the videos... about 260 or so IIRC.

Come next pay period, in the extra hours, i submitted proof of me watching 260 videos (it was verifiable with an online checklist), and my manager flipped out when my pay essentially tripled in that time period.

I calmly reminded her she instructed me to get ahead of the game, and that I couldn't be any more ahead now. She ended up paying me out in 5 hour chunks (to avoid overtime) for the next 4 months.

It was great.

I like you. This is beautiful. People close to me have gotten chewed out for "unauthorized overtime" ... chewed out by the very same person who asked them to stay late and said he did not care if it was overtime... so this tale is just awesome. I can't afford gold, but stop by after work and I'll give you some aluminum foil!

At this point, probably by the 75 overtime hour mark, you could learn some day trading, then get paid to get paid.

My employer also bought into an internet video training service, so we were required to watch them every month. To give the producers credit, the primary "instructors" were great back in their prime and were well known, which helped sell the program. The problem was the "instructors" were past their primes. You could tell the producers had ran out of useful topics long ago, the instructors didn't know modern techniques, and they were relying on poor quality "guest" instructors to teach modern things. Information was bad but not bad enough to convince the boss to go to his boss to cancel the video training.

There was finally a training video on safety that instructed us to do the exact opposite of what was the common safe practice. The primary instructors even gave a warning that the "guest" instructor's method was controversial but they still endorsed it. Our jobs are dangerous enough but the new method was essentially, "forget the common safety method, do this method because while the resulting injury will be severe to you, the incident will be over more quickly". If we were a construction company, it'd be like removing fall protection harnesses and teaching workers to land on their hard hats for survival in the event of a fall.

There wasn't a single person that thought the new method was safe enough to even try it for malicious compliance. I don't think the boss even believed the video had that bad of advice until he watch it after countless complaints and a couple, "do you REALLY want it this way?" The main concern by employees was that a new person would watch the video and obey it out of ignorance.

The boss watched the video and the video training service was promptly cancelled.

Damn son. I guess it is true that people are promoted to their level of incompetence haha

There is nothing better then being paid to crochet!

I imagine finance are going to shit themselves when they see the overtime fees.

If you're watching them at home, can't you put on the videos then do something else?

EDIT: I can't read

I've yet to see a training video that was informative, or even useful. Most videos could be cut into 5 minute snippets and a single page of written text, and the contents would be faster assimilated and better retained.

Watching 20 hours of bullshit weekly to do exams sounds like a waste of time, especially if it's IT related: Exams are done with Google open on the second monitor and nothing sticks after the answers are sent.

I love stories like this when the offending side can't swallow their pride and admit they are wrong. Go down with the ship you prideful idiot lol

Betcha a nickel the new bossman isn't watching dink.

I don’t swear often, but F—k yeah! That is glorious.

oh, your training videos are as mind-numbing as mine, huh? Some of mine are guaranteed electronic anesthetic. I literally have passed out watching them due to the monotony of the computer generated voice.

That's amazing.

Did something similar when I worked retail one summer. The company had a bunch of training videos organized into little courses, and you’d earn a silver pin to wear next to your name badge when you were “certified” in a particular topic. And of course this was all on the clock, and sitting watching videos is obviously easier and more fun than being on the retail floor.

Result: I got certified in the topics I was asked to. And then I kept going. Every day after my shift I’d sit down and watch training videos for another hour or two. After a few weeks of essentially padding my hours, and four new badges to wear, my boss got wind of it and said, with a little twinkle in his eye, “Ok, that’s enough training for you!”

LOVE it.

AMA Request: SysAdmin who fucked shit up for a month low key before quitting.

[removed]