Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Elfmama]

I am going to write down the bolded.  I can never think of these things when I need them.  The best I ever did was the time my dad called and was crying on my shoulder about my sister, and I told him, "Dad, I need to hang up because I'm going to throw up."  He kept right on complaining, so I hung up in his ear because what I'd told him was true.  He had the nerve to be upset with me for that.

Would it have been rude to NOT hang up, but just drop the phone so that Dad can hear the resultant explosion? 

[Twik]

This is one that I have to face over and over, despite the fact that it appears perfectly obvious to me.

I do training. Now, for a training class, certain things MUST be covered. And in our situation, they are covered in a group setting, not one-on-one.

So, why do people assume that the length of the training is dependent, not on the materials that I'm covering, but the number of people in the group? Telling me, "Oh, you can cut the training time in half, I'm sure. We don't have many people in the class," makes me cry inside. I suppose that I could save a little time in group introductions, and maybe not have as many questions to field. But let's assume my training presentation was the equivalent of reciting the Gettysburg address. The length of time it takes to say it is not dependent on the number of people listening, is it?

I swear people believe that the training is done by approaching the person in the first seat, telling them everything they need to know, and then moving to the next person and repeating myself, until I've spoken to everyone in the room. That's the only way it makes sense that a group of five people would take half the time as a group of 10.

(Oh, and don't get me started on the "We don't need your 8 hour session on how to do this complex but vital process. Just give us an hour or so, because we only do that process twice a year," people. Would you want your doctor only to spend a few minutes in medical school learning about a complicated and life-threatening operation "because I don't do it very often"?)

[EmmaJ.]

Twik, that so made me laugh. 

And don't forget, the opposite is true.  I've been in a very-crowded-standing-room-only conference and the person next to me will moan "Just LOOK at the crowd!  We're going to be here all day!"

Well, no, it's billed as a two-hour seminar....   

[Twik]

Twik, that so made me laugh. 

And don't forget, the opposite is true.  I've been in a very-crowded-standing-room-only conference and the person next to me will moan "Just LOOK at the crowd!  We're going to be here all day!"

Well, no, it's billed as a two-hour seminar....   

Can you imagine how long the Presidential debates will be, repeating them for every single viewer? 

[GreenHall]

Can you imagine how long the Presidential debates will be, repeating them for every single viewer? 

...That sounds like the most awesome version of 'Telephone' ever....

[Virg]

EmmaJ wrote:

"And don't forget, the opposite is true.  I've been in a very-crowded-standing-room-only conference and the person next to me will moan "Just LOOK at the crowd!  We're going to be here all day!""

I understand the sentiment here, because huge groups do add significant time to presentations due to "I can't hear you" and more questions and sideline discussions being more likely and so on.  It's the flip side, where people think that a half empty room will reduce the time by half, that's perplexing because there's a minimum time to deliver the "goods", so even if no questions are asked and no problems occur the time line doesn't get that much shorter.  Said in a simpler way, a huge crowd can easily stretch a two hour presentation into three hours or more, but a half empty room isn't going to shorten it to one hour unless the presenter incorporated an awful lot of time for questions.

Twik wrote:

"Oh, and don't get me started on the "We don't need your 8 hour session on how to do this complex but vital process. Just give us an hour or so, because we only do that process twice a year," people. Would you want your doctor only to spend a few minutes in medical school learning about a complicated and life-threatening operation "because I don't do it very often"?"

I get the frustration on your side, but to be honest I'd consider eight hours to teach me something that I do twice a year to be a waste of time.  By the time it comes around again, if I can't reteach myself from a document about it, then the training would be useless because I can guarantee I'm not going to remember a procedure complex enough to take eight hours to learn unless I'm doing it very regularly.  In your example above, I'd want a doctor who does a complex and life-threatening operation more than twice a year to handle it, or I'd expect her to have someone riding shotgun through it because I don't consider it reasonable to expect anyone to retain that level of knowledge about a procedure without more regular practice.  My point is that there's a limit to how much training one can expect to be meaningful and the people making the "one hour" argument may be stating that badly but still trying to indicate that a full day training session for a twice-a-year procedure may be unproductive.

Virg

[turtleIScream]

This is one that I have to face over and over, despite the fact that it appears perfectly obvious to me.

I do training. Now, for a training class, certain things MUST be covered. And in our situation, they are covered in a group setting, not one-on-one.

So, why do people assume that the length of the training is dependent, not on the materials that I'm covering, but the number of people in the group? Telling me, "Oh, you can cut the training time in half, I'm sure. We don't have many people in the class," makes me cry inside. I suppose that I could save a little time in group introductions, and maybe not have as many questions to field. But let's assume my training presentation was the equivalent of reciting the Gettysburg address. The length of time it takes to say it is not dependent on the number of people listening, is it?

I swear people believe that the training is done by approaching the person in the first seat, telling them everything they need to know, and then moving to the next person and repeating myself, until I've spoken to everyone in the room. That's the only way it makes sense that a group of five people would take half the time as a group of 10.

(Oh, and don't get me started on the "We don't need your 8 hour session on how to do this complex but vital process. Just give us an hour or so, because we only do that process twice a year," people. Would you want your doctor only to spend a few minutes in medical school learning about a complicated and life-threatening operation "because I don't do it very often"?)

My guess is that many people tend to over-estimate their intelligence. They think training takes so long, because the instructor is teaching to the lowest common denominator. If all the stupid people are out of the room, the instructor can teach at a faster pace and not waste so much time making sure the idiots are keeping up.

[Midnight Kitty]

I'm probably the one inflicting brain hurt here.

Last night I answered the phone.  Caller ID said Las Vegas.  We don't know anyone in Nevada.

Caller:  May I speak to Mr. Kitty.
MK:  May I take a message?
Caller:  No, I need to speak with him.
MK:  Well, he's not available. <he's napping & I'm not waking him - he needs his rest> I can take a message.
Caller:  This is for an opinion poll and I need to speak with Mr. Kitty directly.
MK:  Oh, an opinion poll.  He will hang up on you.
Caller:  Can I speak to Mr. Kitty?
MK:  You have 2 choices: You can ask me your questions or you can hang up on me.
Caller:  I have to speak to Mr. Kitty.
MK:  OK, then I'll hang up on you.  Mr. Kitty does not do opinion polls.
<click>

Trust me.  I was a lot nicer than Mr. Kitty would have been.  When he's nice, he hangs up.  When he's in a mood, he tells them what he thinks of opinion polls.  He never answers questions.  Ever.

OTOH, I kind of enjoy them. 

[Virg]

Midnight Kitty, the only brain hurt here is trying to figure out why you didn't simply hang up after you told the caller he wasn't available for the second time and the caller insisted on continuing to press.  I've had that happen on occasion at my house, and if I say "can I take a message" twice and the caller still demands anything, they get a "goodbye" and a dead line.

Virg

[Hmmmmm]

This is one that I have to face over and over, despite the fact that it appears perfectly obvious to me.

I do training. Now, for a training class, certain things MUST be covered. And in our situation, they are covered in a group setting, not one-on-one.

So, why do people assume that the length of the training is dependent, not on the materials that I'm covering, but the number of people in the group? Telling me, "Oh, you can cut the training time in half, I'm sure. We don't have many people in the class," makes me cry inside. I suppose that I could save a little time in group introductions, and maybe not have as many questions to field. But let's assume my training presentation was the equivalent of reciting the Gettysburg address. The length of time it takes to say it is not dependent on the number of people listening, is it?

I swear people believe that the training is done by approaching the person in the first seat, telling them everything they need to know, and then moving to the next person and repeating myself, until I've spoken to everyone in the room. That's the only way it makes sense that a group of five people would take half the time as a group of 10.

(Oh, and don't get me started on the "We don't need your 8 hour session on how to do this complex but vital process. Just give us an hour or so, because we only do that process twice a year," people. Would you want your doctor only to spend a few minutes in medical school learning about a complicated and life-threatening operation "because I don't do it very often"?)

My guess is that many people tend to over-estimate their intelligence. They think training takes so long, because the instructor is teaching to the lowest common denominator. If all the stupid people are out of the room, the instructor can teach at a faster pace and not waste so much time making sure the idiots are keeping up.

Wait, are you saying I've been wrong all these years?  I'm pretty darn sure if all the people who like to hear themselves talk, or ask questions about topics just covered because they weren't paying attentionm, or the ones that are in and out on the phone and then coming back and requiring the instructor to repeat the info were removed from my classes, they would go much faster.

In all seriousness, I've encountered more than one instructor who will say something alon the lines of "we have a small class today so we should be able to finish up early".  I always feel like they think a small class isn't worth their time so they are going to rush through the content.  The only time I can see when that really applies is if there is significant group discussons or individual presentations.

[Twik]

Twik wrote:

"Oh, and don't get me started on the "We don't need your 8 hour session on how to do this complex but vital process. Just give us an hour or so, because we only do that process twice a year," people. Would you want your doctor only to spend a few minutes in medical school learning about a complicated and life-threatening operation "because I don't do it very often"?"

I get the frustration on your side, but to be honest I'd consider eight hours to teach me something that I do twice a year to be a waste of time.  By the time it comes around again, if I can't reteach myself from a document about it, then the training would be useless because I can guarantee I'm not going to remember a procedure complex enough to take eight hours to learn unless I'm doing it very regularly.  In your example above, I'd want a doctor who does a complex and life-threatening operation more than twice a year to handle it, or I'd expect her to have someone riding shotgun through it because I don't consider it reasonable to expect anyone to retain that level of knowledge about a procedure without more regular practice.  My point is that there's a limit to how much training one can expect to be meaningful and the people making the "one hour" argument may be stating that badly but still trying to indicate that a full day training session for a twice-a-year procedure may be unproductive.

Virg

Problem is:

The law says you must be trained.

It's a multi-step procedure. There is a reference book, but you need to know how to use the reference book.

If you mess up, you can go to jail. Or worse.

Would you really want your training to be, "Here's the reference book. It's 980 pages. It's got a table of contents, and an index. I'd show you some examples, but your boss doesn't want to waste your time. Bye!"

[jpcher]

But let's assume my training presentation was the equivalent of reciting the Gettysburg address. The length of time it takes to say it is not dependent on the number of people listening, is it?

LOL!

This reminds me of our VideoGuy at work's brain-hurty moments with customers. (This was years back when everybody used VCR tapes instead computer videos.)

Customer: I need you to duplicate this tape for me. I need 10 copies and I really need them in like an hour or so.

VG: How long is the tape?

Customer: About an hour long.

VG: And you want 10 copies in 1 hour? Sorry, no can do. I only have 1 duplicator and the tapes are duped in real time.

Customer: So how long will it take?

VG: About 10 hours.

Customer: What? Why does it take so long?

VG: Real time means that for every minute of tape it takes a minute to duplicate. Your tape is 60 minutes long so I need 60 minutes to make one duplicate.

Customer: 60 minutes . . . that's an hour, right? Great! So I can get my duplicates in an hour!

VG (knocking his head against the wall to stave off the brain hurty): Let's start over . . .


 

[Virg]

Twik wrote:

"Problem is:

The law says you must be trained.  It's a multi-step procedure. There is a reference book, but you need to know how to use the reference book.  If you mess up, you can go to jail. Or worse.  Would you really want your training to be, "Here's the reference book. It's 980 pages. It's got a table of contents, and an index. I'd show you some examples, but your boss doesn't want to waste your time. Bye!""

This reply makes the situation about a thousand times worse.  You're saying that a reference for this procedure takes up nearly a thousand pages, knowing how to do it is a legal requirement for the job, failing to do it correctly could result in jail time (or worse?), they're only going to do it twice a year so they won't get a lot of practice with it and you train people for time equivalent to one single business day for this task?  As you describe it that sounds very nearly crazy.  I think I'd quit long before I had deal with that.  Do the one-hour people you reported to us not realize the ramifications of failing to learn this task?

Virg

[jpcher]

Twik wrote:

"Problem is:

The law says you must be trained.  It's a multi-step procedure. There is a reference book, but you need to know how to use the reference book.  If you mess up, you can go to jail. Or worse.  Would you really want your training to be, "Here's the reference book. It's 980 pages. It's got a table of contents, and an index. I'd show you some examples, but your boss doesn't want to waste your time. Bye!""

This reply makes the situation about a thousand times worse.  You're saying that a reference for this procedure takes up nearly a thousand pages, knowing how to do it is a legal requirement for the job, failing to do it correctly could result in jail time (or worse?), they're only going to do it twice a year so they won't get a lot of practice with it and you train people for time equivalent to one single business day for this task?  As you describe it that sounds very nearly crazy.  I think I'd quit long before I had deal with that.  Do the one-hour people you reported to us not realize the ramifications of failing to learn this task?

Virg

Virg -- I understand where you're coming from. However there are certain procedures that must be taught, due to legalities, for certain jobs. Like mine.

I have one of those positions where I need to go through annual training for a certain aspect of my job. It doesn't matter that I won't implement that aspect more that once or twice a year. What matters is that I went through the training as a refresher course every year.

For me, it is always stressed that "If you get anything out of this training session at all, know where your manuals are kept, how they are organized, and know who you can contact for help. Here are the details."

Think of it as general knowledge that's being ingrained during the training classes. "Okay. I heard something about that in my training session. I'm aware of what needs to be done, but I forgot a couple of the rules. OH! I know where the manual is at! I know who to contact if I have questions!"

Rather than "Oh. Spit. My training was 6 months ago. What the heck do I do now? Do I push this button or that one?"

I don't think that Twik is talking about life and death situation or how to intricately deal with a long drawn out procedure.

I think that Twik is talking about awareness training.

[kherbert05]

I've been in training that was shorten because of the low numbers that showed up. There was a good deal of hands on, and with fewer numbers that just took less time. There have been times in TECH training that the trainer looked around and said we will skip Section because all of you know how to do it. That is because they know us very well.