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Anyone have experience at the FTC?
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I’m sorry. I too work in a federal agency. A lot of folks come here from private practice so we’re literally dealing with the same sort of people who make some private practice toxic. Just try your best to listen to the criticism, learn what you can, and power through. Unless it crosses the line to becoming downright mean or inappropriate, I think just push through it and then try not to work with that person ever again
I’m so sorry. Maybe ask your manager if you can talk with him/her about the reports and event overall? Manager should want to know if the event was helpful for you since it was for employee development. You could say how helpful most of the feedback was (and go into specific points) but how you noticed one of the instructors misunderstood the facts (by your and others’ observations) and her feedback was confusing and unhelpful as a result. Maybe end with asking for advice - how would your manager handle this type of situation in a training exercise?
Ugh that is the MOST awful feeling and as a starter just know you are SO not alone, I’ve definitely been there in terms of feeling just absolutely squashed by a work experience (and yet still have a thriving career). This definitely sounds to me like it’s a serious problem with HER - even if you got every little thing substantively wrong (which I’m sure you didn’t), her chosen response is so off the mark and says a heck of a lot more about her shortcomings as a trainer than about you as a trainee. Belittlement is never professional and never a good look, and I know when I see more senior attorneys punching down like that I lose a ton of respect for them instantly. I like Attorney 2’s response a lot.
All this sounds VERY shortsighted of the instructor given that she in fact is also in her place of work and has made herself look absolutely terrible in front of all of the your fellow trainees, and having a strategic but honest discussion with your manager in the way Attorney 2 says is a tactful way of ensuring that her abysmal performance as an actually helpful and effective trainer is not lost in the mix, as it shouldn’t be. And if nothing else, everyone around you most likely just made a little mental note of - never work with THAT person (the instructor). I like to believe the karma of being an asshole will catch-up eventually; at least in my agency, corridor reputation for being a nice and good to work with person actually matters a lot.
On tearing me down. During an exercise today, she nitpicked absolutely everything about my exercise, going as far as reversing her opinion on certain evidence from an earlier student's presentation, just to say I was using it incorrectly. (Speaking with other students afterward, I wasn't, and they were all bewildered when she lit into me.)
I know I should probably take her singular opinion with a huge helping of salt, but I'm currently sitting in my hotel room feeling 2in tall. I feel like I'm back at my toxic a$$ job in private, and I don't want to see anyone tomorrow. Until this, I had felt like this was a dream job, but I know the instructor reports go to my manager at the end of the week. How should I deal with this the last 2 days? Get some rest and pretend nothing happened? Give my manager a heads up and hope he doesn't take her report seriously?
I just feel immensely sad right now and know my current perspective is probably effed.