Bad luck
So for the second term in a row, I am stuck in a position where I have no idea to whom I report and everyone pushes the responsibility for letting me know what's going on around.
At first I thought it was because of my position as a coop student, but now I know I just have bad luck. The other guy who was hired as the same position as me doesn't have the same problem. We were hired together but was put on two different teams at random. The other guy knows exactly to whom he reports and he is given very specific tasks to work on (despite it's mostly data entry). I, on the other hand, am completely lost and have to figure out everything on my own. The team lead for the team i'm in is a developer, so he's mainly responsible for developing the software application. Since I don't do any coding but works on the user side of the application, I am supposed to report to another person who is responsible for documentation and design and selling the features, who is also a member on the same team. However, this person is physically located in Montreal. She comes to Toronto once every two weeks or so and I mainly talk to her on MSN. Whenever I have a question about something (especially administrative questions), I would message my team lead, who would tell me to ask the other person; then I go ask the other person, and she tells me to ask my team lead. Right. And then they tell me they will get back to me. Right.
When it comes to training, I do everything by myself. I have to figure out the software all by myself, which is okay and a lot of fun, until i have questions. Then there's really no one to turn to and I have to keep asking different people and I feel really annoying.
And then when it comes to responsibility, the area gets even greyer. I'm not told to work on anything with a specific outline or instructions, nor timeline. I keep asking for things to do and eventually I am told to help create a new users manual. Nothing specific except, "follow the old user manual but use a new subject (make sure you think from an intelligence analyst point of view) and keep in mind we need to use all the features so we can sell the product." Sure, except I don't know all the features because no one told me. And what is an intelligence analyst? Am I really supposed to work on the entire thing by myself without instructions? I don't even have people letting me know where the files I need are stored in the network.
And who's going to work on my work term evaluation?!
If me and the other guy who was hired as the same position had switched places, things would be much easier.
At first I thought it was because of my position as a coop student, but now I know I just have bad luck. The other guy who was hired as the same position as me doesn't have the same problem. We were hired together but was put on two different teams at random. The other guy knows exactly to whom he reports and he is given very specific tasks to work on (despite it's mostly data entry). I, on the other hand, am completely lost and have to figure out everything on my own. The team lead for the team i'm in is a developer, so he's mainly responsible for developing the software application. Since I don't do any coding but works on the user side of the application, I am supposed to report to another person who is responsible for documentation and design and selling the features, who is also a member on the same team. However, this person is physically located in Montreal. She comes to Toronto once every two weeks or so and I mainly talk to her on MSN. Whenever I have a question about something (especially administrative questions), I would message my team lead, who would tell me to ask the other person; then I go ask the other person, and she tells me to ask my team lead. Right. And then they tell me they will get back to me. Right.
When it comes to training, I do everything by myself. I have to figure out the software all by myself, which is okay and a lot of fun, until i have questions. Then there's really no one to turn to and I have to keep asking different people and I feel really annoying.
And then when it comes to responsibility, the area gets even greyer. I'm not told to work on anything with a specific outline or instructions, nor timeline. I keep asking for things to do and eventually I am told to help create a new users manual. Nothing specific except, "follow the old user manual but use a new subject (make sure you think from an intelligence analyst point of view) and keep in mind we need to use all the features so we can sell the product." Sure, except I don't know all the features because no one told me. And what is an intelligence analyst? Am I really supposed to work on the entire thing by myself without instructions? I don't even have people letting me know where the files I need are stored in the network.
And who's going to work on my work term evaluation?!
If me and the other guy who was hired as the same position had switched places, things would be much easier.