I wanted George, but this isn't

Margate is home to Herring gulls; large, assertive, in yer face. 
Chatham is home to swans, pigeons (natch) and black-headed gulls; smaller, more discreet, with an anthropomorphically apparent understanding of personal space.

Today at work I enrolled in the apprenticeship scheme for which my candidacy has been accepted. Across the business a total of fifty candidates have qualified, seven of whom are based at my workplace. I am grateful for the fact that fellow team-member, S, will be on the same course.

S & I arrived first in the meeting room booked for the enrolment, I chose a seat directly opposite the facilitator and S sat next to me. Even before the remaining five candidates had arrived I was aware that the facilitator was exhibiting all the personality traits of a Herring gull. I hoped she would settle once all the other candidates had arrived in the room. I was disappointed.

To begin with, the facilitator had written our seven first names as a list on a piece of paper. Our task was to write our personal mobile phone number adjacent to our first name and pass the paper to the next person around the table. Easy enough you might think. But by the time the piece of paper reached me I found that someone else had put their number beside my name. Who can't recognise their own name? There is no similarity at all between the two. Mistakes are disallowed and so the whole process had to be repeated with a new piece of paper hand written by the herring gull.

I don't have a great deal of patience with stupidity, unless it is a real disability, in which case I have all the patience in the world, but in either case, that person, whatever their problem, should not be on this apprenticeship. Really.

Next came a sheaf of forms to be filled out for Govt. purposes; Full name, NI number, address, employer etc. Easy to manage but made more difficult by Herring gull's incessant chatter and explanation. Did she think we were all idiots? Should we even be on the course if we were? I was becoming increasingly rattled.

After that were two papers, a test in English and a test in Maths. Twenty minutes for each paper, to be conducted in exam conditions without calculators. We had the option of taking the two in whichever order suited us best individually. The tests were interesting in that their level of difficulty rose exponentially as they progressed. I chose maths first and English second.

While we were in “exam” conditions, the herring gull fidgeted, muttered, distracted, was intensely annoying and I received a kindly smile from another candidate on the other side of the table when he heard me mutter “would you please Shut the Fuck Up!”

Herring gull did not hear that.

Happily, the torture lasted only 150 minutes and not the full 180 minutes for which the room had been booked.

I returned to the security of my workstation and immersed myself in the work I do, but at some point later I became aware of tears rolling down my face. I had been subliminally intellectually assaulted.

I wasn't the only one. Colleague S and the chap on the other side of the table both chose to speak to me about the experience which they had also found humiliating. Probably a first for them (young, male, tall, fit, white).

Getting over it and unlocking my bike from the cycle-rack, I was suddenly rushed by S, who wanted a hug. No one at (this) workplace has done a huggy-thing to me ever! He'd just won first prize in some competition giving him a free holiday to Ibiza :-) He wanted to share the immediacy of his excitement with someone he felt affinity with, while holding it back from his partner, for just long enough to concentrate on the trials and tribulations of her day before brightening it with a sparkler.

Arriving home, I switched the radio on and heard the latter part of a radio-documentary about the importance of personal space. I have described that on page one of my apprenticeship learning diary.

Hoping I have no need to analyse Tuesday to this level of detail.