They Can’t Always Be the Bad Guy in the Story

One day Keith sent out an email for Staff Training plans.  He asked everyone in his staff to fill out the form and request any training that they needed or wanted.  I guess that our department had some extra funds and increasing our skills overall was a good way to market our department as well as ask for more money.  I was excited.  I sat down and I requested all of the courses that I wanted.  I really wanted to get training on the Rational Tools Suite.  I had been told that being a Technical Writer with Rational Tool skills would make me more marketable, and that fit my “Needy, Speedy, Greedy “  attitude.  So, I submitted my training request, with great expectations.  The following day, I was called into Keith’s office.  He told me that as a subcontractor, he could not sign off on all the classes that I had requested.   He could only sign off on one class related to my field and it was one that I didn't need.  He provided a bunch of reasons, however, after the word “no” was said, I stopped listening.

After our meeting, I went over to the Rational Tools team area to complain and pout about not being able to take the classes that I wanted.  Rich, the Rational Tools Manager suggested that I put my application in with his staff, because his boss never reads anything that he signs and my training request should slip right through with the rest of his staff’s.  Now, my only issue was deciding what classes I was going to take.  I still had to be careful because although the classes were onsite, some of the courses lasted a week and I could still risk getting caught by being away from my desk for a long time.  I selected some Rational Tool Introduction and some Performance Testing courses.  

Well, Rich was right, his boss did approve my training request and now I just had to be two places at once.  So, for the week that I was in training, I came into work early and I completed most of my tasks, and then at 9 am, I would wander down to the classrooms on the first floor.  I would go back to my desk during lunch and break to respond to any voice mails and answer emails.   Afterwards I would sneak back to class.  This almost worked because almost everyone in our class knew how I got there, and they weren't saying anything.  Also, Keith didn't really need me for anything that week until Friday. 

Friday afternoon, Keith was looking for me and he asked one of the staff members  had they seen me.  They replied, “Sure, Cara is in class with the rest of the Rational Tools Team.”   He responded “She is???”  And they replied “Yea, she has been there all week, today is her last day.”  I am sure that the conversation probably included going to the Admin Assistants to determine how I got permission to take these classes since he had not approved it.  This is probably when his face turned red; at least it was red 

                                                  by the time I got pulled out of class and sent to his 

                                                  office.  

During our impromptu meeting, Keith asked me, if I remembered that he said that I could not take any of these classes.  As I started to form the word “no” out of my mouth, he reminded me about how good my memory was and that I had never forgotten anything that he had told me.  (I used to really hate when my bosses had figured out how well I remembered things.                                                                     I mean, I  really, really hated that.)     

                                                                                                                   

Well, the good news was that I didn't get fired.  It was also good news that Keith did not stay mad at me.  But, that was because he decided to punish me.  He gave me a new assignment where I had to start using some of my newly acquired skills.  And that new assignment created more new stories...

#oopsbusted