Sorry about the rant, this is important to me; I could lose my job because of this person.

My colleague can only do his work with software he is familiar with, it's like he never learned the fundamentals of what he is doing. At the start I allowed him to use what software he knew while passively trying to teach him. It worked, slowly we where making progress then suddenly our project deadline got cut by almost a year.

I am now actively trying to teach my colleague, now that it's clear that I am teaching him he is being stubborn. Several times we got into arguments with the last one ending with me shaking with fury.  When I explain things to him it's like he doesn't believe me.

A few times now he has shown me Youtube videos where the youtuber does things differently, then states that I am wrong and the youtuber is correct. I would have been fine with that if the Youtube videos he keeps finding, weren't the instruction kind, you know the "Do X and Y" videos where they show how to do a thing but don't explain why there doing it.

He sits with the tutorial open next to him all the time and because what he is doing isn't the same as in the video he quickly gets stuck. I tried showing him with his own work what to do, then he started asking me how to do things that he could already do so that I would do it for him.

I tried showing him on my work, even when he can see it's working it's like he doesn't believe that I am doing things right. Often he would say a youtuber did X and Y. When I explain it's the same he just gives me a blank look.

I have tried giving him better Youtube videos, he even watched a few of them yet he still can't do the basics. He keeps going back to the instruction kind of tutorials.

I tried explaining how the software he knows is the same as the new ones. He literally told me the way substance's multiply isn't the same as Photoshop's, when I told him it's a mathematical expression and he could use his calculator to test it, he just gave me that blank look.

In our last argument it became clear that my age is a large factor and the main reason he does not trust me, he feels that because he with more experience than me doesn't know how to do a thing, then there should be no way that someone with less experience could know how to do it.

Just now, jbadams said:

Are you responsible for training this person?

I am responsible for the team. I have also been warned that our team is among the lowest scoring.

When I pointed to my colleague as the weak link, my supervisor warned that because of the people my colleague knows and the amount of time he has worked here, chances are that I will be the one to go.

To clear things up a bit. Our funding got cut and now low scoring members are being laid-off.

I have only been working here for two years so chances are high that I will be among the people laid-off even if I am more qualified.

I am 27 and he is 56 as you can see it's almost double.

With him so near retirement and me with still young chances are stacked against me. Normally I wouldn't mind but this time of the year is the worst time to loose a job.

I want to clear this up. I don't mind loosing my job, I do contract work for me this is normal. The problem is that I am loosing my job because someone on my team doesn't want to learn to do there job.

If I can teach him and our team gets a better score, we have one more month, then at least things are fair. There is also the slim chance that if we over work our self we could have a better demo and get more funding.

So the way I see it is that by getting my colleague to do his part, things could maybe improve.

Sounds like he just isn't a systemic kind of thinker? Not everyone thinks and learns the same way, some people don't get anything out of learning the "why" - they can only learn to glue existing stuff they know how to do together without the "why" even figuring into it.

What is the nature of the work and the nature of the scoring system?

33 minutes ago, Scouting Ninja said:

he feels that because he with more experience than me doesn't know how to do a thing, then there should be no way that someone with less experience could know how to do it.

Did you tell your supervisor of this exact exchange? I would hope that your higher-ups would see reason when it comes to their employees saying something so obviously silly.

1 hour ago, TheChubu said:

For good reasons or not, these people don't like you nor want you. Anyone would expect this kind of thing happening in such situation, and that they're stacking it against you is telling.

Yes at the moment a lot of them are against me and the others that haven't worked here long. This is to be expected, they are friends and we are new.

The supervisor is a bit on my side, because he knows I have been doing the work of two people to keep up with deadlines. However the call is not his. He did say he will try to keep me but in the end a lot of people will have to go.

1 hour ago, Oberon_Command said:

Did you tell your supervisor of this exact exchange?

Didn't need to, it was a very heated argument. Everyone knows about it now.

Even with the large amount to be laid-off my colleague is safe, that is why he is willing to argue with me. The best way for me to work with this is to get him to work along. Except there is nothing I can motivate him with so I can only help him improve.

Edit: Spelling and such.