Surrealism

Some of you have said some very kind things about my professional technical skills, and I thank you for that. Today my training dept were rather less impressed as my attempt to download “Zoom” failed and I missed my online training course.

The training course was about manual handling and I have known since 1977 that the best way to lift a heavy object is to ask someone else to do it. 
I have never in my entire life attempted to lift a human baby.

Quite why the outsourced trainer wanted us all to download “Zoom”, which requested personal data from private individuals, when all staff already have access to both Skype and Microsoft Teams, is quite beyond me, and our IT staff agree. I did suggest to the training dept that perhaps some IT training might be more relevant to my job, but that fell on deaf ears.

30 minutes after the 3-hour session was scheduled to begin, at least three of the fourteen students were emailing to say that they couldn't gain access to the “call”.

Two hours after the scheduled start, the training dept said that the trainer hadn't mentioned any issues and asked if we were now all successfully in the call. 

By that time I had done loads of work and no lifting. I hadn't even attempted to download “Zoom” yet again.

Of course the trainer hadn't reported any issues – he gets paid at least £20 per attendee, which for 14 students pays him £280, or £93.33/hour, which is shit-loads more than any of us are paid to watch him prat about in his home gym while we sit at our desks diverting calls.

Later in the day a colleague whom I have seen only once since March came in to empty her desk. She hadn't been asked to come in and empty her desk, but she thought that in all probability that eventuality was on the cards. Then she asked if anyone had a box she could put her stuff into to take it home.

If you set yourself only one task in a day, and that is to voluntarily fetch stuff from a to b, would you not have thought to bring your own basket?

I don't think any of us are thinking straight just at the moment.