Thursday, July 21, 2005

Learn, you'll learn, you'll learn....

So I had a bad day today and I cannot believe the song that came on to put as my title. It's really weird because it fits my feelings EXACTLY. Scary really...

Basically it went down like this: I made a mistake (and relatively speaking it was a small mistake) and it was something that needed to be pointed out to me. I wish I could explain the mistake but honestly, it wouldn't make much sense. It amounts to me forgetting one step of my technical assistant job, which happens to everyone occasionally (because nobody is perfect). Anyway, I got ripped a new one by my underwriter for said mistake. I was told I would never be an underwriter if I made mistakes (because she's obviously perfect) and sorry didn't cut it.

OK, I have like 800 reactions to this. Yes, I did make a mistake and yes, I did need to be told. Obviously as someone in training its important I learn from these mistakes. The problem comes in with the way this mistake was criticized. I should have been told of my mistake and why it's important not to make that mistake in the future etc. etc. Basically my trainer should have trained rather than berated. And second, this mistake had NOTHING to do with my training as an underwriter. It was something that she needed for
her process, but I didn't make a fatal judgment error or charge someone too little, I just missed a small step. As the underwriter, yes, she should have caught the slip-up and did..so now I will know to always do this thing. But right now, I'm doing two jobs at once and one little mistake is really a good record.

A huge part of me wants to go whine to the VP. Obviously this teaching thing is not my underwriter's cup of tea. It is really, really unreasonable to expect perfection from me at this point in my career (considering that the point I'm at is basically step one). But that is just not in me, I feel like it would be somehow weak to complain about this. But I think I have resolved to discuss this with the underwriter tomorrow and tell her how I feel. So if I don't have a job tomorrow, you'll all know why.

God it feels good to get that out. I needed to talk all day about that, but I can't email or call because those are "monitorable." That's not a word is it?

Unrelated: For some reason any boy becomes sexier when he's carrying around a copy of HP and the Half Blood Prince. If it's important enough for him to buy a hard back copy so early in the game, he clearly enjoys reading. And that's hot.

3 comments:

  1. Talk to the underwriter first because then if she still sucks she can't complain when you do go to the VP and turn her butt in for sucking at her teaching job. Its your career, you have to go to work everyday and if she sucks and teaching you and makes life hell you shouldn't take it. Just my 2 cents. Its not weak to bring to the VPs attention that one of his employees is unhappy, its what you do to make the company better.

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  2. I totally agree with anon. Make sure you go straight through the chain of command, starting at the bottom. If the UW doesn't change/improve, then you have grounds to go to her boss, and tell them the problem. I would also, somewhere, document internally what happened at the meeting with the UW, so that if you need it, you have it. It could be as simple as a few notes about what you said and how she responded, with the date and time. That way, you can take that to the next meeting, if there needs to be one.

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  3. I too agree with Anonymous and with manogirl. Take the appropriate steps to making your self happy with the company. It is your job we're talking about.

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