My Days at Eton
Hello! Back home now from a week's training at Eton. Not the college, obviously, but a software company based a stones-throw from the public school for the nation's most over-privileged. It was a bit hair-raising driving in one morning during rush-hour, when the streets were thronged with floppy-haired boys in tailcoats and white ties. A moment's distraction by the sat nav and I could have taken out an entire future Tory front bench.
I've done countless training courses over the years, and there are certain commonalities:
The trainers always have tics or regional accents that start off charming but end up being incredibly annoying after about half an hour.
The air conditioning never ever works properly. In this case it was incredibly hot up until an hour before the end of the last day, when a bright spark worked out that it needed to be switched on.
They always have complicated coffee machines that almost require a chapter in the training manual to themselves. This one involved posting a pouch in a small slot and then answering a multiple-choice electronic questionnaire before it would give you a drink of tea. Douglas Adams would have been proud.
The trainers always try to tell you complicated things just a few minutes before the end of the day, when most people's brains are usually having trouble just maintaining their body in an upright orientation. One of our trainers started off a topic one afternoon at about 4:45 with the words "Now you don't need to know this but..."
I don't know about you, but if someone tells me that I don't need to know something, I can't remember it. It's not a case of being too lazy to remember it, my brain literally switches off. I'm trying to concentrate on the words but my brain is going "but she said you don't have to remember this! I'm tired! Look, there's a plane out the window!".
Anyway, back home now. Glass of wine in hand and best wife in the world by my side. Facts learned at great expense to my employers already starting to leak away. Here's to the weekend!
I've done countless training courses over the years, and there are certain commonalities:
The trainers always have tics or regional accents that start off charming but end up being incredibly annoying after about half an hour.
The air conditioning never ever works properly. In this case it was incredibly hot up until an hour before the end of the last day, when a bright spark worked out that it needed to be switched on.
They always have complicated coffee machines that almost require a chapter in the training manual to themselves. This one involved posting a pouch in a small slot and then answering a multiple-choice electronic questionnaire before it would give you a drink of tea. Douglas Adams would have been proud.
The trainers always try to tell you complicated things just a few minutes before the end of the day, when most people's brains are usually having trouble just maintaining their body in an upright orientation. One of our trainers started off a topic one afternoon at about 4:45 with the words "Now you don't need to know this but..."
I don't know about you, but if someone tells me that I don't need to know something, I can't remember it. It's not a case of being too lazy to remember it, my brain literally switches off. I'm trying to concentrate on the words but my brain is going "but she said you don't have to remember this! I'm tired! Look, there's a plane out the window!".
Anyway, back home now. Glass of wine in hand and best wife in the world by my side. Facts learned at great expense to my employers already starting to leak away. Here's to the weekend!
Small world and all that.
(you should have mown down some of those future tories)
If you ever apply for a job at the company I work for, the over complicated coffee machine is actually part of the initiative test and is marked in the interview. J
I know what you mean about attention span and fatigue, I can remember waking up in a lecture at university to the words of the lecturer, “and for those of you who managed to stay with us….”. I don’t even remember drifting off! Too many ‘till 5 in the morning doing the assignment’ stints. Who’d be an engineer!
Apologies if any typo’s have crept in but I’m typing this and watching ‘Joules Holland’s Later’ at the same time.
Lots of training firms seem to operate like this. Fill you full of lunch, crank up the heating and *then* wonder why half the class is zombie-eyed.
ps: The driving off road thing made me think of a highly glamourous Terminator. I shouldn't have had the acid before coming on-line.
However in the afternoon we did get to let off fire extinguishers which to me, at the time, more than made up for the morning :)
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