Training courses, training courses - I remember those
My job involves on-line searching. Fifteen years ago I turned up for a course run by a university professor. It was great and we all learned a lot. Ten years went by and I had not used much of it for some time, so I was sent on a refresher course, same professor. I was baffled about what he was talking about that time and the entire day was useless.

But the main part of the job is interpretation of law. As a result of an international agreement, there was a simple change to the act. Everyone who might just possibly, by some stretch of the fevered imagination require it received a half day's training. The job eventually was done by one bloke who spent perhaps half a day a week on it.

About five years ago, a different passage in the act was reinterpeted by the High Court. This affected everyone, since it is a routine decision that ~200 people have to make many times every week. Nobody could quite understand what the learned gentlemen and lady of the court had meant and how it was to be applied in the "real world".

But after a few weeks our local whizz kid decided he knew, so lectured us for fifteen minutes on the matter. I don't think anyone was any the wiser when he finished. He resigned a few months later. And god help you if you got lumbered with a case he'd done the initial work on.

Meanwhile we have had courses on fraud, which came down to a reminder to fill out timesheets correctly with a couple of amusing instances of gross abuse. Another was how to use all the wonderful features of the telephone system, of which only the voice mail and call forwarding section is actually used.

But nothing on the actual law we are supposed to apply.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 2:59, 6 replies)

fascinating.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 7:12, closed)

Where's the pay off ?
I've held my story back this week, because it's not that funny, but it's at least twenty times more interesting than this.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 7:23, closed)

Maybe it's my lack of
"lawyer-speak" but I honestly didn't get this.
Then again failing at lawyer-speak ain't such a bad thing.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 17 Mar 2012, 7:30, closed)

Indeed.
I suspect that the lawyer-types want to keep it all vague so no one can nail them down.

"Can you send me that via email?" No, they want to tell me over the phone.

"Do you mean it this way---?" No, they don't want to clarify it so precisely.

The other tack they take is to subject you to information overload so you still have to interpret it all yourself.
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 8:38, closed)

One must look within
To find the "true" meaning. Or apply the I Ching?
( Squilliam but . . . . *I'm* the one with all the talent!, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 8:40, closed)

I thought that was a deliberately disjointed and boring set up for a funny punchline. But no.

( da5id <YOUR SIG HERE>, Sat 17 Mar 2012, 19:26, closed)