Training

I apologise for my lack of blogs of late; life has been somewhat frantic. As if my work load wasn't significant enough, I have been forced to endure two training courses which have attempted to explain to me the wonders of our new IT system at work. I realise I hide well my impatience, and that most readers of this blog would describe me as a placid, happy-go-lucky fellow who gets on with everyone, and is rarely annoyed. You will no doubt then be shocked to learn that my training course irritated me somewhat.

I accept the need to recive training on a new IT systems. It is one of life great miseries for sure, but I accept that, to tick the training box, I must be herded into an overheated room to be told why I can't use the programs I am used to and we must move to a "new, improved" version. What raises my blood pressure, however, is a “trainer” who says 26 times “this is self explainatory” and then goes on to explain something. A trainer who insists on reading every word on the screen for us...who painfully and laboriously makes us go through information which is of no interest to man or beast. I quote: “To send feedback, click on the feedback button. It's self explainatory really, but let me talk you through it. Where it says "name", put in your name……………” I could go on – he did. But I won't.

The one small pleasure I recive from suffering through this is the feedback form at the end; the opportunity to, in a few small boxes, attempt to sum up a world of dissatisfaction. It was then, with horror, that I noted that the people on either side of me had ticked all the "satisfactory" boxes on the feedback form. At one point the person next to me had actually fallen into a coma. It was touch-and-go whether he would survive, such were his boredom levels, yet he ticked "satisfactory". As we filed out, I calmly enquired as to why he had given positive feedback, whether he had indeed enjoyed the training. “Bloody terrible” he replied. SO WHY, OH WHY, SAY IT WAS GOOD?? "Well", he explained, "I’m English." Dear reader, it took all my will power not to poke his eyes out with my pencil. I guess that means I am not,after all, an English Gentlemen.

Yours,

Calmly

The Broken Man

Tutorial

Tonight will be my first tutorial, my first chance to meet a couple of the people I will be training with for the next three years. We are expected to have completed unit 1 of the course by this weekend, yet we have been told to bring nothing with us to the tutorial, "it's just a chance to get to know each other…"

It will not come as a surprise to you to learn that I have read through the first five weeks of the course already and done the first essay. Hopefully, this will give me a chance to kick back a little bit and concentrate on the new module of my MA for the next four weeks, and then to flip back to the degree again. I do, however, have a sense of impending panic and doom about whether I will manage the time demands. I really want to get the most out of the degree, and the training; I want it to transform me, to make me into a better person. I would love to go in to one end of the priest-training-grinder as I am and come out the other side shiny, holy, loving, peaceful and wise. Thus far, every other sentence I have read in the study materials has made me want to stab someone to death with a rusty spoon. I really don’t feel cut out for this being a vicar lark. It's barking mad.

The plan tonight is calm..peaceful.. reserved...no sarcasm. Listen respectfully. Learn from those in my group. Think nice thoughts. Don’t become centre of attention. Don’t speak to much. Take other's points of view seriously. I can do this…I can!!

– just in case..i will take a spoon with me.

Yours as ever

The Broken Man

Studying

With my new course due to start in September (BA theology) I have received information on study skills from my training provider. I think the advice provided is worth sharing in case anyone out there is thinking of doing some study, or is on a course which hasn’t provided some of the information they have given me...


"Just think what you might need to start off studying:

Paper – preferably A4 size

Ring binders for notes and handouts

Stapler or paper clips – you need to keep things together in order

Filing box of cabinet to keep all course materials

Writing implements

Markers

Shelf to hold the files and folders

Post it notes or the like"



I know! Not things most of us would have thought of. I am having to do some work readjusting my thinking to study. Paper! That hadn’t crossed my mind. Writing implements? I was intending to use my own blood, but now they have suggested writing implements I am thrown into confusion. Should I be using a ball point pen, roller ball, fountain pen, or pencils? I will have to ask my tutor which is best.


I have not the words…


Yours as ever,


The Broken Man