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When I first started working at my current company, I had no training at all. Very difficult to communicate with others on providing training because they were always so busy. Basically, they told me to just figure things out. After almost two years of struggling (pay was good - couldn’t leave), I was provided with new management and everything changed after that. I was finally placed with a team that genuinely wanted me to learn and work with them. I have a learned a lot since then, although I am always looking for new opportunities due to the initial experience.
Mentor
I've been there! Do you feel comfortable enough with any other admin that could be a mentor or coach of sorts? It can be so hard to do certain tasks without knowing the way a company does things. I recently was asked to do an out of state event for a considerable number of people. Someone on our actual events team offered to help guide me through the process but then never actually responded when I reached out. I was lucky that a fellow admin was willing to take the time and help me with the process and legal requirements our company wants in contracts. I could have fumbled my way though most of the planning, but there is no way I'd know the legal parts. It was such a relief to have her walk me through a few things.
Coach
From my experience, I go with asking for help.
Some people do not like to ask for help especially if it seems like they always need to ask.
What I have learnt is never go to anyone for anything empty-handed. Do a little research yourself. Have a few ideas and start your conversation that way. For example, if it is about how document execution happens in your company, you can start by searching the company's intranet or policies. All you need is a quick search, nothing too deep. Then you can either search online to know what that process should probably look like. Or you can speak to anyone else even in another company to get a sense what their process is.
By the time you approach whomever you want to ask directions from, you ask your question and mention the steps you've taken to get answers for yourself. That way, they can't see that you asking them isn't you just being lazy and not wanting to exert any effort.
I have been asked to coordinate charity events that have been going on for many years but I don’t have any documentation as to how they were coordinated so if I don’t do something that the previous person did, then they get frustrated at me. I don’t know what I don’t know. If someone doesn’t give details on how things were done in the past or if certain things are expected with an event, then I don’t know I’m missing it. It is really frustrating.