Help, I'm being held prisoner in a corporate training facility

[pmcleanj]

Seriously, guys! If any of you are Scott Adams fans, you probably know that the funniest cartoons in the "Dilbert" series are the ones that are lifted directly from real life. They're a lot funnier though, when you're telling the story later (or reading about it happening to Dilbert) than when you're in the midst of the experience.

Has anybody gone through this kind of thing? There are some very serious flaws to this kind of training -- flaws that damage the degree to which the training is effective, and flaws that put the participants at a level of professional and personal risk. I'll happily take any suggestions anyone might have RIGHT NOW on how a participant -- me, in this case -- can mitigate those risks while they're immersed in the training "experience".

Thank God for the internet -- you guys may be all that keeps me sane.

[longhair75]

I did two straight weeks of factory training last summer writing fire alarm programming code, and another week in the fall. I have no words to ease your situation, but you are in my thoughts and prayers

[RobNJ]

Thank God for the internet -- you guys may be all that keeps me sane.




Boy!!! Good thing you believe in longshots!!!;)

:wave:

[pmcleanj]

One of the things I am finding hardest, is the social isolation. I'm accustomed to dealing, at a fairly fast pace, with staff, suppliers, customers, colleagues; and then family, teachers and friends and fellow-students (at ballet class and Tae-kwondo); and then with bible-study partners and fellow church-people and of course you all. What's notable about all those relationships is that we have a fundamentally shared perspective. I need the context of each of those relationships but especially (without glowing my own horn) as a "gifted adult" and as a spiritual person, I NEED the context of other people who recognize the complexities of the various problems I deal with and who share my value set and some aspects of my rather peculiar background. I've intentionally sought out relationships with such people.

Here, I am in a room with 20 professional colleagues and a handful of facilitators, but in an artificial situation where we are being invited to "share insights". I'm "sharing insights" with people who don't know who Rene Descartes is, who have never listened to Edvaard Grieg, who think that Jesus' influence in society is similar to the role of Feng Shui -- and THEY"RE "challenging" me to "step up and be engaged".

And the worst of it is, after two days of isolation from my normal extended support group, I am so lonely and hungry for spiritual conversation, that I'm tempted to actually share some of my inconveniently honest observations.

God, send me angels to guard my tongue!

[higgs2]

Yes, it's that kind of event that makes me want to scream "VISION IS NOT A VERB!!!!"

My suggestion is that you start asking awkward questions with a big smile and innocent wide open eyes. ;)

[pmcleanj]

Mmmm, I've tried the passive-aggressive approach before. But this is an "elite" training group, and I need to manage the perceptions of several of my "fellow" students because I need their contributions in aspects of my role "back at the office". Many of them buy this gobbledegook, because they are perceiving only the surface level of the course, and not the process of manipulation beneath it, or because they don't see the corporate deficiencies that the coursework is targetting and are thus unperturbed by the content's inappropriateness to the problems. I can't blow off their "buy-in", because that's likely to come back at me later as them blowing off my insights.

Fortunately, I the two fruit tarts I ate at coffee-break turned out to have been made with coconut or palm-kernal oil in them. I missed half the last "coaching exercise" while I was in the washroom dealing with the gastric after-effects of my allergy to those oils. My stomache aches now, but I do think it was better than participating in the last exercise. I only need to survive another forty minutes for today. So please, keep talking to me!

[higgs2]

Mmmm, I've tried the passive-aggressive approach before. But this is an "elite" training group, and I need to manage the perceptions of several of my "fellow" students because I need their contributions in aspects of my role "back at the office". Many of them buy this gobbledegook, because they are perceiving only the surface level of the course, and not the process of manipulation beneath it, or because they don't see the corporate deficiencies that the coursework is targetting and are thus unperturbed by the content's inappropriateness to the problems. I can't blow off their "buy-in", because that's likely to come back at me later as them blowing off my insights.

Fortunately, I the two fruit tarts I ate at coffee-break turned out to have been made with coconut or palm-kernal oil in them. I missed half the last "coaching exercise" while I was in the washroom dealing with the gastric after-effects of my allergy to those oils. My stomache aches now, but I do think it was better than participating in the last exercise. I only need to survive another forty minutes for today. So please, keep talking to me!


Yes, well the P/A approach is for personal entertainment purposes only... not approved for actual use for anyone who is expecting results. :D

Why don't you try "visioning" what you want the results of this training to be ROFL! :cool:

Sorry to hear about the tarts. :(

[Argyle]

Uh-Oh!!
This must be gettin' SERIOUS!! Pamela has gone from purple to red!!

1) Don''t drink the kool-aid!
2) Look for the humor... try not to laugh out loud at the people buying into this stuff!
3) Look t the speaker intently, while totally NOT paying attention & going through your favorite liturature & liturgics in your mind.

[Albion]

I know exactly what you are experiencing, Pam, and there is no escape.

All you can do is work hard at not appearing to be bored, hostile, or uncooperative, since this may be held against you. The most encouraging thing I can pass along is that you can rest assured that none of it means anything to them either.

It's merely what they are paid to do...and next year everything that is presented this year as critically important will be forgotten in favor of an even newer intellectual fad. But if you are up for it and don't feel too hypocritical, you can actually enjoy playing along, secure in the knowledge that everything will revert to the usual grind after the training has ended, even if you were told that great new ways of doing your job were what the sessions were preparing you for. The objective is not to improve operations; it is to satisfy some higher authority's demand that your supervisors show that something is being done along those lines. Merely holding the sessions is good enough to establish that.

[pmcleanj]

Uh-Oh!!
This must be gettin' SERIOUS!! Pamela has gone from purple to red!!Did I? LOL! I could see that something had gone wrong, but not what it was (and I can't edit it). I'm in PDA mode, as being less obvious if someone glances at my screen -- which I am holding down on my lap, with my back to a wall.

So, I have the next eleven hours off (and I missed the team [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]-up at the bar because of the stomache cramps). I have my sewing machine and cell-phone in the dorm room. It's still relative isolation: I went all through the town website and phone-book hoping for a Wednesday-night worship service or a public lecture or ANYTHING that would let me interact with someone other than my co-workers, but the best I found was interacting with the late-night grocery clerks at the Safeway, and Turner Classic Movies. GAH -- but not as bad as being in class and dealing with it. So, see you all in about eleven hours; and please be patient with me if I start posting frenetically. I usually try to have something worthwhile to say before I take up your download time, but tomorrow morning I expect I'll be posting just for the evidence that I exist.

[RobNJ]

Pamela!!

If you seen something that looks like a large seed-pod under the bed... DON'T GO TO SLEEP!!!^_^

[gtsecc]

I had similar experiences in corporate America.
I once ended up running the largest national account, but was technically subordinate to boss’s son, who was functionally illiterate. I had a team of people that I needed to give clear instructions to, in order that an essential task be performed precisely as I outlined it. Idiot boy asked me to re-write the directions so that they were longer and more “corporate” sounding. He wanted more gobledegook because that was what he thought was important. This is one of endless experiences that were bizarre and surreal, and spiritually damaging to me. Apparently many people find the movie office Space pretty funny. I did not, because t was so close to my experience.

[Mary of Bethany]

One of the things I am finding hardest, is the social isolation. I'm accustomed to dealing, at a fairly fast pace, with staff, suppliers, customers, colleagues; and then family, teachers and friends and fellow-students (at ballet class and Tae-kwondo); and then with bible-study partners and fellow church-people and of course you all. What's notable about all those relationships is that we have a fundamentally shared perspective. I need the context of each of those relationships but especially (without glowing my own horn) as a "gifted adult" and as a spiritual person, I NEED the context of other people who recognize the complexities of the various problems I deal with and who share my value set and some aspects of my rather peculiar background. I've intentionally sought out relationships with such people.

Here, I am in a room with 20 professional colleagues and a handful of facilitators, but in an artificial situation where we are being invited to "share insights". I'm "sharing insights" with people who don't know who Rene Descartes is, who have never listened to Edvaard Grieg, who think that Jesus' influence in society is similar to the role of Feng Shui -- and THEY"RE "challenging" me to "step up and be engaged".

And the worst of it is, after two days of isolation from my normal extended support group, I am so lonely and hungry for spiritual conversation, that I'm tempted to actually share some of my inconveniently honest observations.

God, send me angels to guard my tongue!


I feel for you! I'm pretty good at daydreaming, but I don't know if you could get away with that in your situation, even if you found it helpful. Since it doesn't bring social interaction, maybe not. :sorry:

Thank goodness for internet connections. :)

Mary

[No Swansong]

Are you being held hostage do you need the police or are you kidding?

[kiwimac]

Now, you see, this is why I learnt Klingon. When asked at corporate sessions for my input, I would say things like:

" Well in the Kartesian model, as you all know, we often say Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!"

Now I come to think of it, I wonder if that's why I'm not working currently? :D

[RobNJ]

Pamela's been quiet...... too quiet!!:eek:

Did they get her???????????:cry:

[No Swansong]

Are you being held hostage do you need the police or are you kidding?
Wow I really was gone. Sorry Pamela.

[pmcleanj]

Pamela's been quiet...... too quiet!!

Did they get her???????????:cry:
I escaped!!! I'm free!!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!:ebil:


Wow I really was gone. Sorry Pamela.
No problem, John!:sorry: Your post did make me think about how careful we have to be on the internet NOT to cause that kind of misunderstanding!

It was my starting the original post with "Seriously, guys" that made it ambiguous. And I was serious about needing help -- but spiritual help, to overcome the spiritual abuse that so many of these "experiential" programmes comprise. I'm willing to give the practitioners the benefit of the doubt, that it's generally unintentional; but no less abusive just because of that.

Incidentally, happyfreak14 saw the post and sent me a nice encouraging PM, referring to the Centre as "that horrid human-pyramid place" :D -- a reference to Scott Adams' analysis of the different styles of management. That one was the "cheerleader" style: "Come on, team! Let's all build a human pyramid!".

I spent most of Thursday doing Theatre Improv sports (!!!). When I got home, I told Anne that I didn't build a human pyramid, but did spend 90 minutes out of doors using sawed-off PVC pipe to transport marbles into a paper cup. She asked what that had to do with leadership... :confused: How do I answer that one?

We had the CEO drop in yesterday for the closing ceremonies, so we did actually manage to make some proposal presentations that might actually make some differences. But the most astounding thing about yesterday was that over dinner with my 14 and 11-year-olds I discussed more ideas and correlations than in five days with twenty of my colleagues.

I feel so much better now.

[RobNJ]

I
I spent most of Thursday doing Theatre Improv sports (!!!). When I got home, I told Anne that I didn't build a human pyramid, but did spend 90 minutes out of doors using sawed-off PVC pipe to transport marbles into a paper cup. She asked what that had to do with leadership... :confused: How do I answer that one?



Quite simple.. Once you've "lost your marbles", you can devise THe Great New Management Paradigm & lead seminars!!;)

[AveMaria]

I feel your pain. I was in those shoes last month. It was awful - the only nice bit was that they fed us well.

[norbie]

Incidentally, happyfreak14 saw the post and sent me a nice encouraging PM, referring to the Centre as "that horrid human-pyramid place" :D -

Now you see - be thankful for your "little Lurker". Great young Girl helps Mum to stay sane!:thumbsup: