assimilate

"I just told you that an hour ago!" Candy's mood turned from overly sweet and kind to irritable and rude on a dime. I was trying to learn an antiquated Frankenstein's monster of a software program out of sequence, out of context and from a menopausal drunken barfly.
"I'm sorry, Candy, but I am not going to retain all of this information in a week. I really need to learn the process in sequential order. I also need to be given the time to take some notes, so I have something to reference." Candy was sitting in a chair next to the desk, holding her head in her hands. To her credit, she had been trying to train somebody with no experience, without the benfit of a manual or reference materials as well as do the job for three locations. None of the previous hires had worked out. Rumor was she had been training people for almost a year non-stop. I almost felt sorry for her.

"You the new girl for Ted Lane's department?" an old man eating a bear claw in the break room stared at me through big plastic safety glasses.
"Yes, I'm Katherine." I extended my hand.
He switched the bear claw from his right to his left and shook my hand.
"I'm Bob. I work in Production. I sure hope you can stick it out. They've had a bunch of 'em try it out. None of 'em stay."
"Oh..." I didn't know how to respond. I made a face at him.
He laughed. "Did I scare ya? It's not that bad. Just that damn Candy's crazy. Nobody can stand her long enough to learn the job. I don't envy you." He called the last sentence over his shoulder as he headed out to the Production area.
Over the next week, versions of this scenario would play out no less than eight times.

"There's just no time for that! When I started here, I had nothing! You just have to remember what I tell you!" She was getting kind of shrieky.

"Candy, everybody learns differently. It will take twice as long for me to learn this if I don't learn it in some kind of logical fashion. I need to start at the beginning and proceed through the steps sequentially. That is the only way I will assimilate this information." I want to punch her in her pink shiny alcoholic face.

"Fine! JUST STOP SPEAKING TO ME!" There she went. She lost it. She raised her voice so loud that all work and conversations in the adjoining cubicles stopped.

I turned to the phone on the desk, picked up the receiver and dialed.
"What are you doing?" she asked me. She looked over my shoulder to see the extension on the screen on the phone's base. It read, DIALING LANE, T.
"WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO CALL TED! WE CAN WORK THIS OUT!I am just very irritable. They think I may be becoming diabetic. It causes mood swings..."

"Hello, Ted Lane."

"Hi, Mr. Lane. This is Katherine."

"Hey, Katherine. How are you?"

"Good, Mr. Lane. I was wondering...I think maybe I need a break from training, and Candy needs a break from me. Would there be anything else I could do for the remainder of the day?"

"Yeah, I think so...why don't you come to my office? We can find something for you to do."

Like you, I thought in my nasty naughty bad girl mind.

"Thank you, Mr. Lane." I picked my bag up and walked out of the cubicle. Candy was still yammering about not needing to involve Ted, blah blah blah.