Training My Replacement

So the person who is taking over my job -- well, the job that I am filling in on an interim basis -- is coming today/Monday.  Naturally ... naturally?  Is that word?  Anyway, since she is taking over this job -- my job -- and she doesn't know how to do it, I will be tasked with telling her what to do and how to do it.  Well, to the best of my ability, because even after a month I think I know how to do, um, half of the stuff I'm supposed to do.

I hate training.  I go back to that third and final year at the flu billing place where I was thrust into training about 16 people to do my job.  In retrospect, I should have been paid double for all that shit, or at least got a full-time job.  I'm back to doing that again, if only for a week, and I'm nervous.  I felt like I needed to look presentable, so I got my hair cut Saturday afternoon and I just got done shaving my face after showering.  (That didn't go so well.  Blade must be dull; should get a new one.)

I don't know if it's going to help.  I'm going to be such a mess in telling her all that I know (which is not much) that I think I'll leave her in worse shape than she came in.  I'm just not good at communicating what needs to be done to another person.  I wasn't good at it at the flu biller place, and I sure as fuck won't be good at it now.  I thought I should think about it this weekend, but I haven't thought about it one peep.  Which sucks because I'll be there for 40 hours and she'll be there for 40 hours and neither one of us will know what to do with each other after I stammer out instructions.

But a thought came through my head this weekend: Why in the hell am I so worried about training my replacement?  I mean, I'm training my replacement -- I am teaching things to the person who is taking my job.  Why in the fuck would I be so enthused about doing that?  Shit, why would I even prepare myself to do that?  What vested interest do I have in helping my successor succeed?  And come to think of it, why can't I get this job full-time?

This brings me back to a test scoring project I did late in the summer.  The first day (and have I blogged about this?) we were told that we probably won't be doing this project ever again because we are training a machine to grade essays.  We were training our replacement there, too.  I don't know how in the hell artificial intelligence can score papers, and even if they can, I don't see what state Departments of Education would want to rely on computers for kids' educational prospects.  But that was the deal.  And like a chump I went to work anyway, getting that AI so good at what we've been doing just fine for years that it'll just push us into poverty.  That same shit is going on here, and I should be in a better position to avoid debasing myself into doing bullshit like that.

(By the way, for those who asked why I feel this way when I was trained for this job by the person I succeeded; she was leaving this job on her own for a different position.  She was not forced to train her replacement like I am.)

So why am I doing this?  I don't know.  I really don't think it's in my best interest to train her with gusto.  But there are, I think, two reasons which prevent me from totally blowing this off.  First of all, while she is the person who's taking my job from me, it's not really her fault.  I'm sure she has no ill intent to maliciously push me into unemployment.  And second of all (and this may be the salient point), I was told when I got this assignment that they are looking for someone else.  As much as I think it's logical to be considered for this post, I was told from the outset that they're conducting a job hunt while I was doing the work.  So this shouldn't be a surprise.

But it still sucks.  So I may or may not think about what I'm going to say.  If I get a reputation for being a malcontent, that's alright.  I would be standing up for myself, my dignity and my principles.