There is a computer program called SATURN which is designed to model the movement of traffic across a network, by utilising the results of other modelling tools such as ARCADY (roundabouts) and PICADY (non-signallised junctions). My boss decided we all needed a refresher/taster course on this exciting program, and paid our consultants to get their pet expert on SATURN to provide a day's training for us and any of their staff that fancied it.
Unfortunately, their expert was no teacher. After 5 minutes I realised that we were about to spend the entire day being read to from a powerpoint presentation (also conveniently printed for us) while trying to make out the displays (white writing on pale turquoise, anyone?). The guy might have known his stuff (he might well have done for all I know), but presentation skills had he none, rambling on about this matrix fitting there on the spreadsheet and that index means blah, without explanation (just because) and occasionally rambling on until the sentences gently faded away into incoherence. The software has not really been updated for Windows, unlike some programs, which having once been green writing on a black screen, have acquired reasonably friendly Windows interfaces.
And it wasn't just me: my colleagues facial expressions showed fear and embarrassment. The exercises, which ran on into lunchtime, were simply copies of slides that had been on the screen earlier, from which anyone with any sense copied down the answers while they were on the screen.
By lunchtime I had had enough. In the corridor, I expressed my feelings to Pete the Boss. "Have a migraine" he said. So I wandered happily off and into the street, where I promptly did get a filthy headache and went home to bed.
Those that stuck it out ended up playing games on their pdas and inventing Saturn Word searches for each other. At last, they all claimed they had to catch one particular infrequent rural bus (which was a lie) and left the consultant's employees to the rest of the course, while the guy running the course barely interrupted his flow of speech.
Today they have sent us a feedback form, and my colleague is looking up words for "dull" in the thesaurus. No-one criticised my successful absenteeism, merely looks of admiration and jealousy.
And Pete the Boss, because he thinks he has got a new job elsewhere, after 10 years, is bigging me up. Shit.
3 comments:
As a "Technical Consultant" who also gives a fair bit of formal training, I'm VERY aware that there are some very bad "trainers" out there. People with large amounts of technical knowledge think that they must pass on ALL of that knowledge, and that EVERY BIT OF IT is essential... which is of course 100% not true.
We all know that what you are supposed to do is give the minimum needed, so as not to verload the student brain or cause confusion.
As a result, some of the best trainers are ones that understand the subject, but don't understand it too well. People who don't themselves don't learn too quickly often make good trainers, as they are very aware of how difficult some things can be to understand.
Which reminds, me, I must see about going on another TTT (Train-the-Trainer) course.....
What's wrong with being read off a powerpoint presentation when you've already got it printed in front of you? Sounds just like a year at uni to me......
It's like writing instruction manuals, the boss goes to the forman and says I need someone to write the instruction manual, who have you got spare? So the forman points to the dumbest worker on the shop floor and glad to get rid says, "Him."
Which is why instruction manuals are imposible to understand.
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