I started a new job in a new industry in July 2009 after months of unemployment. I went through 3 months and 3 interviews to get this job. In retrospect, that was probably a huge warning sign.

I was trained haphazardly by co-workers. They’d squeeze in 15 minutes before lunch to show me how to do X and then hand me documentation. Or I’d have a half a day of a co-worker complaining about how useless dept processes were under the guise of “training” After a couple weeks working, a co-worker just wasn’t there. I was told that he wasn’t happy with the job and had moved on. In a recession sure… I wouldn’t quit shoveling horse manure in this crummy economy! Then the manager who hired me left the company so I had a new boss.

This new boss was never around, didn’t understand her own department’s processes/reports, and had really horrible social skills. I had maybe 3 meetings with her in 6 months.

End of December a couple co-workers and I were made aware of a huge mistake I had made. In my defense, I wasn’t aware or clear on how to perform the task and had been trained once in July. So, we scrambled to correct my mistake and it looked like most was correctable. So, I thought the mistake would go by unnoticed and didn’t say anything to my boss.

End of January 2010, my mistake turned out to be huge and cost the company a lot of money. I came in Monday morning, none of my computer passwords worked, I had a meeting with my boss and the VP. I was back home with a bag of my stuff within an hour.

I was officially let go three days later. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the whole process of how this mistake became so huge. It also didn’t matter that a new hire was given such an important task with no check-up at all for six months. The bottom line was that I didn’t notify my boss. When I was let go, I suggested better training in the future to avoid such problems.

This post was submitted by AnnaB.