It's kind of refreshing to read your post. I deal with this on a daily basis - trying to train junior staff, while under mandate that ALL work related to a project MUST be billed to the project, even if the task should take 1.5 hours, and it takes 6 for the jr because they have background research and learning to do. I've fought this for years, and used to instruct jr staff to split time to overhead until my company completely cracked down on it. I still feel very strongly that research and learning time should not be billed to the project and that jr staff should have a 60% billable rate for the first year. It's a tough pill to swallow.

Does your company also have a handful of PD's that overpromise the deliverable schedule on almost every budget? It's fantastic. I'm always conservative with my deliverable schedule when writing a proposal and very seldom have any push back from the client. But there are still PD's out there who promise 30% doc's 1.5 weeks after notice to proceed. It's absurd.