Ill - Communication
The weather was wonderful over the weekend. One might reasonably expect that I might have been out soaking up some pre-summer rays but unfortunately that was not to be. Most of Saturday was taken up with desperately checking through my bank statements to make sure that the TK Maxx fiasco had not seen me lose any money to the computer hackers. Fortunately after some hours it would appear that I had not despite the fact that I appear rarely to do any shopping elsewhere.
Sunday consisted of an eight hour marathon training session. We covered all the usual points - Leadership, Working with People, Food Handling etc and then we got on to Communication. This started badly for me as a friend had phoned me on my mobile just before the session, so I was a bit late getting in. I apologised profusely, my embarrassment compounded as I discovered that the only chair available was on the far side of the room so I had to cross between the tutor and all the other trainees. The tutor looked none too impressed at my tardiness and fixed me with a steely glare.
"Let's talk about the different types of communication there are." she started.
No one answered. "Well" she said pointing an accusatory finger at me "What have you just been doing?"
"Talking on the phone" I mumbled.
"Well then" she said with a slight note of triumph in her voice "That's one already. Any more?"
The session edged along in much the same manner with no one willing to do much communication at all. We had to perform part of the play "The Steamie" which was a little difficult as some of it appeared to be missing.
Then the final humiliation. We had to write on a topic and then talk about it for one minute. Not only talk about it, but also be taped talking about it. We all thought of ways of stopping the recording taking place - ie taking out the equipment's batteries, but to no avail. We were all duly taped talking on exciting topics such as "My Holidays", "My House", "My Pets" , "My Family" etc etc - you know the kind of thing. What will happen to the tapes is anyone's guess.
The most interesting part of the training course is that those who complete it get to come back and tutor new trainees so I'll be thinking up some interesting future communication sessions I can tell you.
Home time arrived eventually. The sun had gone down and the weekend was over. My dreams last night were filled with taking batteries out of machines and generally disabling any equipment I could lay my hands on. Would that we had managed it at the time.
Sunday consisted of an eight hour marathon training session. We covered all the usual points - Leadership, Working with People, Food Handling etc and then we got on to Communication. This started badly for me as a friend had phoned me on my mobile just before the session, so I was a bit late getting in. I apologised profusely, my embarrassment compounded as I discovered that the only chair available was on the far side of the room so I had to cross between the tutor and all the other trainees. The tutor looked none too impressed at my tardiness and fixed me with a steely glare.
"Let's talk about the different types of communication there are." she started.
No one answered. "Well" she said pointing an accusatory finger at me "What have you just been doing?"
"Talking on the phone" I mumbled.
"Well then" she said with a slight note of triumph in her voice "That's one already. Any more?"
The session edged along in much the same manner with no one willing to do much communication at all. We had to perform part of the play "The Steamie" which was a little difficult as some of it appeared to be missing.
Then the final humiliation. We had to write on a topic and then talk about it for one minute. Not only talk about it, but also be taped talking about it. We all thought of ways of stopping the recording taking place - ie taking out the equipment's batteries, but to no avail. We were all duly taped talking on exciting topics such as "My Holidays", "My House", "My Pets" , "My Family" etc etc - you know the kind of thing. What will happen to the tapes is anyone's guess.
The most interesting part of the training course is that those who complete it get to come back and tutor new trainees so I'll be thinking up some interesting future communication sessions I can tell you.
Home time arrived eventually. The sun had gone down and the weekend was over. My dreams last night were filled with taking batteries out of machines and generally disabling any equipment I could lay my hands on. Would that we had managed it at the time.
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