"I know, I know!" Do you know anyone like this?

This past weekend, which was a rough one admittedly, there was a guy at my job that was to come in for training.

Although I did not really train him in any direct manner, as the weekend supervisor, it was my duty to meet the guy, and to provide him not only with a welcome to the site, and to my shift, but also to give him some brief rundowns and reviews of the site, particularly as it is on the weekends.

Not a big deal, right?

The thing is, the supervisor on before me, who I relived from duty, warned me about him, saying that he was "a bit weird". Since he is hardly the type of guy to talk smack about anyone, it kind of raised my eyebrows a bit. I wanted to meet this "weird" guy, who I would soon enough be working with regularly.

Well, I met him, and indeed, "weird" is the best word to describe him, I think. He just strikes you as odd in almost every way, once you meet him. He seems to be the type of guy that will both impress you and unimpress you in the same sentence, if you know what I mean. He was an "expert" on everything, it seemed. Maybe a jack of all trades, and a master of none, if you will. Not just with the job, but with everything. It seemed that he expected you to listen to what he had to say, and not question him, no matter what it was that he was talking about.

Allow me to explain.

When I first started on the job, I was receiving training as a supervisor along with this other guy, who was going to be more of a floater, on a part-time basis. I, in the meantime, was going to be working full-time, and would be a weekend supervisor on Sundays, specifically.

In any case, this guy I was training with was a real braggart. I mean, to the extreme. Some of the stories about his bragging were legendary, and you might be hard pressed to believe them if you heard them. Yeah, that out there. He was loud and boisterous, to say the least. And one of these ludicrous traits, if you will, was to pass off any information received during his training by mentioning that this was all redundant to him, that he was well aware of all of this stuff already, and that you were preaching to the choir, in essence. This he did even with crucial things, and in particular, with the fire panel.

Now, we all know that fires and fire alarms are among the most serious things that a building might find itself under at any given moment, right? So, you might think that someone who will be accountable for answering might be attentive, because if ever put to the test, you had better show results. Apparently, not everyone agrees, because me fellow trainee interrupted the guy that was training us on this, the most important of all of our training, and claiming that he knew "exactly" what to do with this system, because his previous job site had the exact same system, and he was completely comfortable and familiar with it. The guy training us looking at him, shrugged, and moved on to the next thing. I requested more training on it later, but held my tongue at the time.

Fast forward a few months, or maybe even just a few weeks. This guy I trained with and I were on shift, and an alarm goes off. We manage, but he at one point looked at me, shrugged himself then, and said "I don't remember them training us on this thing", and just left it at that. I thought to myself, "What an idiot!"

Well, by now, you probably understand what was weird about this guy on the weekends. No matter what you might say or do, this guy, let's call him Andrew, knew it already. He was the type of guy that wanted to impress you, and moreover, wanted to impress upon you that he was at least as qualified not just to do his job, but to do yours, as well. He literally would cut people off as they were providing some of the basics about the site, and claim he was more than familiar enough with these things, based on some of his past job experiences. In short, he seemed more focused on impressing than on learning and, much like the guy I trained with so many years ago, he would surely point the finger of blame on the one(s) he received training from if he encountered a situation where he was unsure of what to do. Obviously, it was not much fun to train him, and I just hope that I am wrong about my gut feelings here.