Thursday 13 September 2007

Pointless pursuits

I finished a college course today. I enrolled for it two weeks ago. It's work-related, and I was informed that it was compulsory. I shrugged my shoulders and enrolled.

I started a college course today - the same one, approximately two hours before I finished it. Someone had reminded me that we were due to hand one of the units in tomorrow. There are two individual units to complete, each comprising three separate parts. So, six chunks of work in the form of questions to be answered. I finished the lot in one fell swoop.

I had a method. I would read one of the questions, then look in the accompanying course book, and there was the answer in the related section. I would copy out the answer into the appropriate space on the question sheet.

With the next question I did the same thing - and so on and so forth, until I'd completed each question in each unit. It wasn't cheating: it was what we were told to do by the tutor.

So I've completed a course in an afternoon. Will I pass or will I fail? With a learning experience of this quality, I couldn't really give a shit. A pass will be as meaningless as a fail.

I haven't learned anything whatsoever, I haven't gained anything from doing this course - except for a mild sense of bemusement at having to do something for the sake of it, and which has no merits otherwise. But hey, if I pass, apparently I get a recognised qualification!

I did remind myself that at least I was getting paid for the time I spent sat in the office copying answers from a book onto a worksheet.

Ho hum.

14 comments:

Merkin said...

Yes, and the Training Organisation received a cash bonus for passing a student.
The Government got one more trained person to put on a stat somewhere.

As you point out, your training did not particularly benefit your goodself - except by having increased your notional transfer value at some future point.

Still, gave you a day out, on pay.

trousers said...

Correct merkin, and that's what grates as much as anything.

It wasn't a day out though - it was in my own workplace, the tutor comes over to pick the work up in the morning. I won't be there so someone else will be passing it on to him for me, by which time I will already have forgotten about it.

Pants said...

Poor Trousers

How tedious. Just how difficult does it have to be to enjoy your work these days??

xxx

Pants

DJ Kirkby said...

How ridiculous! Hope it gets you a payrise for unreasonable suffering through enforced boredom.

Anonymous said...

Hi pants, that's the kind of question that's frequently on my mind, especially at times like this.

A payrise djkirkby? That's a perfectly reasonable suggestion as far as I'm concerned - but since neither you nor I deal with the wages in my organisation (shame!) you can guess the chances of a payrise...

Fire Byrd said...

well lets see now the pay rise in the NHS for this year is split into two payments the first an exciting 1.8%and the next not much better.
And we all can be bloody grateful from the government for such largesse.LOL
pxx

DJ Kirkby said...

Hey Px, guess who isnt going to benefit from the NHS payrise even though it is back dated to April when I was still working there? Grrrrr! How unfair? Opps, sorry Trousers, I'll get off the soap box that I found on your blog, yep your blog, ignore me, I''m going...Though perhaps you or Px could have my portion of the payrise that they will not give me?

Anonymous said...

No need to apologise dj, it's fine! Stay on the soap box if you like.

I couldn't take anyone else's pay rise off them though (could I?)..

Liz said...

Hi Trousers - like the blog.

When I started working for my current employer, I was referred to LearnDirect to learn how to use Powerpoint. The first online course was supposed to involved 7 hours of study and I completed it in one afternoon. I subsequently did two further online courses on using this software, both completed in less than a week.

Five years on - I have still never had to use Powerpoint.

trousers said...

Hi liz, yes that sounds like a similar waste of time - makes you wonder, doesn't it. Nice of you to drop by anyway!

But Why? said...

How very soul-destroying.

Something is very broken indeed, but I suspect that it's not the share price of major training providers.

But (maybe I'm just a cynic...?) xx

Anonymous said...

Cynical? If so, then rightly so, but why.

Soul destroying? Well, it's another straw on the back of that particularly camel (eh? Hope that makes some sort of sense).

Anonymous said...

It's just jumping through hoops, isn't it?

I suppose it's one of the disadvantages of being actually properly employed that you have to do these things :(

I am sometimes told to attend training courses, but since I am just on a freelance contract with the school I can actually tell them to stuff it. It's very liberating...(just don't ask me about the job insecurity that comes with this set up).

Anyway. You sound a bit down, I hope thinks will start to look up soon.

trousers said...

Hi ario, I was down when I posted this - it was easier to channel it into a sense of annoyance over something specific.

Down but not out, sometimes I'm getting a glimpse of something positive on the horizon :)