Responsibility for what I can't control

by Sue

Being held responsible for something I cannot control.

I work for a sales company that has over 30 offices nationwide. Each office has a branch manager, team leaders, an office administrator, a recruiter, and sales agents. I am a corporate level person in charge of training. Because many of our offices do not hire a lot of people, it is the team lead or branch manager that does the training in the offices. It is not cost efficient to hire a trainer in each office.

The problem is that the people that are responsible for the training in the offices are also responsible for the sales of the office, which is a much higher priority, and to say training is not a big focus is an understatement. We routinely throw someone in to train a class who not only has no training experience, but has very little understanding of all the intricacies of our job. This results in consistent problems in the training we deliver, and our clients notice. Our directors and CEO absolutely refuse to hold the office managers responsible for the training, and I take the blame for cities I’ve never even BEEN to. It is absolutely infuriating. I send out agenda’s, hold training calls, update training, and try to contact each office manager to ensure they are on board with the processes, but they can’t even be bothered to pick up the phone. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of people who are not under my influence. This is what drives me crazy.