leading a training today

[Zoe Girl]

i am a litte nervous, i am leading a training, 2 -2 hour sessions, about 50 people in each session, setting up 6 activities for them to get into practicing some plans for summer programming, and i am doing it by myself. i have done this training with a partner before and with some other people leading a portion of it but this time it is by myself. i feel generally confident however still nervous. i think a little nervous is good, it keeps us on our toes and planned well.

the person that i have partnered with for the previous trainings is from a different OST program and we trained on a book program that many summer programs are using. She can't be here for this training so she asked me because she liked my training. i think i could have been paid extra for this but this time i just put it down as regular work because i am not sure about that with my department. i will check into it in case i am asked to do something like this again and am offered payment. it sounds like there are opportunities now and then for outside work which is nice to know.

[mschrisgo2]

Hope it goes well, and you have fun!

[Zoe Girl]

i did have fun, and a few people had seen me before so one asked if i was the author of the book i was training on, wouldn't that be cool. Also i found that i am seen as an expert, i was happy i was able to answer the off topic questions about teaching or programming.

i am so happy that i got the pinterest page to work! i made a pinterest page with all the activities from this training today so at our lunch break i added more based on some morning ideas (building a water balloon catapult to simulate slingshotting a space ship around a planet for example) and many of the participants found it before we even left. one person asked about academic rigor and i got a definition on the pinterest page for him as well.

[JaneV2.0]

It sounds like you found your groove. Everything seems to be on track in your life.

[Radicchio]

Congrats. And I agree with your initial assessment that a little nervousness is not a bad thing. Hopefully, though, it will lessen with time; but, in my experience, it never totally goes away. As you said, I think it makes one more conscientious and thorough in preparing. (Or maybe it's just evidence that you are conscientious and thorough in planning.)

[Zoe Girl]

Okay 3rd try, I keep getting interrupted here at work.

I heard from my supervisor today when I shared the pinterest page with her. She straight up asked me why I thought I could do that training. I had asked her when I joined the committee and part of the committee role is to provide training, this one was an additional training to the ones originally scheduled but within the organizations that had trained before. I even had one of my summer staff come to save me extra training time. Still I was asked what the training included, who was there, and of course why I thought I could do this. Sigh, after years of offering to do more training for the department and mostly having it turned down or forgotten I want to move forward and not make excuses in my career by taking opportunities. I am not sure that administration really has a good perception of my work, however colleagues and my staff have a very positive impression. A lot of administration are friends and I am not invited to join the group. At this point I think I am done bringing things up that concern me or reminding them I have offered to do training, or whatever.

A lot of times work is just like this huh,

[sweetana3]

I can see so many interpretations of the question "why did you think you could do this?"

1. Was she insinuating that you are not competent to do it?
2. Was she saying why did you think you could do this without her knowledge?
3. Was she saying you had not gotten approval (at any level) for a particular training?

I asked my hubby who worked for a Fortune 100 company and every single training had to have very strict approvals to meet documentation and many levels of approval signoffs. One thing to consider is, if it had failed, the upper levels would have been impacted negatively and if successful, they want to take credit. Neither of us ever would have organized training (even questions raised by peers) without the complete knowledge of our supervisor. Was she totally in the loop?

[mschrisgo2]

Ok, so I think that is just a very weird question for a supervisor to ask someone who has just given an obviously well-received training to, oh, yeah, 100 people!

Reminds me of the years I worked for someone who, I came to understand, was personality disordered. After a good counselor clued me in, I pre-empted those kinds of questions/discussions with a brief email, a very specific recap of who, what, when, where, reactions/evaluations scanned and attached. I copied the Board president and secretary (it was a non-profit). Ultimately, I left within the year, but I dealt with almost 4 years of craziness there. I learned that no matter how good my results were, her crazy got in the way. I couldn't change her, but I sure could change where I worked.

[Zoe Girl]

good feedback, I am glad I shared (I wasn't sure)

* I had already been on the committee and my department was aware that I was doing trainings in this program, so competent shouldn't be the issue.
* Probably that she did not know I was providing this training on this date with this group is the biggest issue (however I am not sure she paid much attention to my schedule of other trainings before this and she did not need to come to any)
* I hadn't thought about department liability or approval, I will make sure I inform my supervisor next time. I had assumed that being approved to do the training committee included acting as a trainer but I can see that. I did not tell her all the trainings I was participating in when I joined the committee, and she also never asked.

I will say that her personality has calmed down over the year I have worked directly with her. I also know the entire team of supervisors is horrible right now. There are a lot of people quitting. So I think that part of this is that:
* she does not understand my specific site and the combination of grants and parent tuition (I am the only one) to explain it to others when they ask.
* she is being put on the spot as well
* she has a temper

[Valley]

Congratulations on a well received training. But, as Sweetana said I think her questioning has to do with you not including your supervisor in your plans. I would imagine that you would need some sort of "signing off" by your supervisor before you presented this training. Not because it wasn't wonderful...but because there was a chance that it could have been awful. Maybe you have the total autonomy to do this and I'm completely wrong. Either way, I'm glad you're feeling a sense of accomplishment!

[Valley]

Sorry Zoe...it seems we posted at the same time.

[Zoe Girl]

Yeah I don't always know how to read her, she is often silent in response to what I say. Not a negative thing, rather neutral, but still I am not sure if I should go on and say a lot more, should I stop and assume we understand each other, should I bother her next time with similar information? Our monthly meetings are talking through a checklist and not getting to larger conversations.

Outside of this I am super proud of how I handled Monday. I seem to be making mistakes, both ones I can admit to and ones that are just confusing like the training. So I was called on something on Monday, which was partially because no one ever read my camp proposal. I wrote it and expected responses in March. After 4 weeks of asking for an approval and being told to wait I went up the chain of command. I am running a summer camp with a middle school program and that camp director was already starting to promote so I very much had to get up to speed. So a lot of what I have been told I am doing wrong, including another issue today, all were covered in my proposal. The staffing levels and pay rates, enrollment goals, fees charged, argh! So Monday I just calmly told her that she and the other supervisor did not read my proposal or respond, in fact no one read my proposal, and we needed to talk about these issues months ago. Wow, direct and calm like that and the world did not fall apart.