We are vastly unprepared and sad.

"We are seriously considering firing everyone in this room."

That was yesterday - or Wednesday. On Monday, it was:

"We are not considering firing anyone in this room."

So, what changed in those 48 hours in between each meeting? We actually got more comfortable with our new jobs. We had one full day actually doing our new jobs. We probably improved by an absurd degree from just getting some hands on experience. It was incredibly awkward and horrible, but it was slowly getting better. At least, until...

"We are seriously considering firing everyone in this room. Anyone who wants to spare themselves the embarrassment of being escorted from the building next Friday when we make that determination should quietly bow out now and not come back. You're wasting our time and yours. Feel free to run directly to employee relations and tell them everything I'm saying, but - if I was blind, deaf, and dumb I know I could still outperform every single one of you."

Holymotherfuckingassholesonuvabitchdickhead... Shit.

I'm going to be unemployed for Christmas. Again.

Our first day that we were supposed to be on the phones, our entire class was pulled after only an hour. I didn't realize that and kept taking calls. I joined them probably half an hour later. It became painfully obvious to the support staff that none of us had any real idea what the hell we were doing. We didn't know how to navigate the various systems - there are over 30 systems that we can access and utilize for various reasons through the course of our attempts to troubleshoot whatever device the caller is trying to operate. It would seem that the last six weeks of training had not been very effective. Either every one in the class had been in a 42 day coma or ... Well, it didn't take the group more than a second to throw the trainer under the bus. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve it, because after six weeks of listening to her explain very rare (And often entirely theoretical situations. Situations she even referred to as probably not something we'd ever have to deal with and might only see once in the course of our careers, if at all.) and listening to fabulously humorous (but entirely pointless anecdotes that may or may not even had anything to do with the actual job but more often lead to this weird personal flashback universe where we drowned in boredom and nostalgia) and not being allowed to test any of the knowledge we were supposed gaining (for fear that our training environment might somehow impact the real world environment and cause serious havoc to any number of systems or users) and basically just watching slide shows about corporate policies, she did deserve that blame. We were not taught how to do our jobs. We were basically a six week case study on how long 20 people can sit in a room and not fall asleep or kill each other after eight hours of repeat captivity every day. Honestly, I'm not an idiot. I might have some problems with common sense occasionally or with over-analyzing things, but I'm not an idiot. In fact, learning is probably the one thing I'm exceptionally good at. Not to say I'm not exceptionally good at anything else, but I am the best at acquiring, comprehending, retaining, and utilizing new information. I'm like a dorky sponge in that way. So, if I am unable to learn something... I honestly don't know that rest of that sentence. It's never actually happened before. The only reason for me not to have learned something is if I never tried. That's the only explanation. It's like my attempts to learn other languages. I get side tracked. I forget about it. I don't actually try, so I don't learn. I was in a room for six weeks being bombarded with information. It's impossible that I didn't learn anything. I definitely did learn things, just not the right things. I can explain how the technology works. I just don't know how to use my tools to correct technology that is misbehaving.

Imagine this:

I spent six weeks watching someone draw stick figures on the board to explain the different markets of people who might call in and use very old school Nickolodeon references to explain how networks relay information.

Yes, it is entirely the instructors fault. We completely understood what was being explained, but we had no way to realize nothing beneficial to us or our future employment was being addressed. Anyway, they took that first day and gave us a crash 6 hour course on how to use one of our network systems. We didn't go back on to the phones and actual take calls until Tuesday. First thing Wednesday, we had that delightful meeting.

So... I filled out some more employment applications today. I could be fired at any moment, but most likely by next Friday at the latest. I'll keep going back until either my identification badge is deactivated or they escort me out. I'd very much prefer the former of those two options, because if it's the latter - I can't promise I'll go quietly. They may actually have to physically remove me rather than just escort me from the building. I don't owe them an ounce of grace.

Bastards.