On a course, which was so utterly pointless...
..as to constitute criminally defrauding the taxpayer by spending good money on sending people on it(course consisted of a bit of playskool level psychology, new age arseery, a personality test - turns out I didn't have one! - and the overall conclusion that 'we're all diffrent and have to learn to work together people), the course 'facilitator' asked us all to write down our expectations of the day, seal them up in an envelope and then she would open them at random at the end of the day.
Anyway, come the end of the day the comments are being read out, mostly sheep like stuff like 'I would like to learn empowering strageties for more integrated collaborative working with my colleagues' the writer then being asked to identify themselves and then being asked by the increasingly smug 'facilitator' if those expectations had been met to which the answer was 'yes', hence the increasing smugness of said 'facilitator'.

Then my envelope was opened.

The legend 'I'm expecting a lot of buzzwords, playground level psychobabble, my intelligence to be insulted and to actually prefer to have spent the day at work doing something useful' was read out.

Cue stunned silence, before the reply came 'Well, I hope I've NOT met those expectations'.

Another silence with whole room expecting me to be contrite and say 'oh yes, I'm a much better person for being here and promise never to be so cynical ever again'.
My actual reply was 'You've more than met them and what's more I want to know how to set myself up in your trade becuase I reckon I could have put this course on for fifty quid in the pub and done in half the time' and waltzed out feeling like a job well done.

Mind you I've not been allowed to go on any courses again since then..

PS sorry about length.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Fri 30 Apr 2004, 12:20, Reply)