Don't you train me

In October I was warned about a week-long management training course that I would have to go on come March or April, courtesy of Year In Industry. (No, I don't do management. I don't intend to do management. I won't have to do management at least until I emerge from the other side of Uni, in four and a half years' time. But it's mandatory, and I don't think there's anything I can do to get out of it.)

About ten days ago, more details were forthcoming. It's to be held at Southampton University, about 65 miles from where I live. The letter noted that "due to the high number of students we have in the Southern Region, we have devided to repeat the training at four different venues on four different weeks. We have allocated each student to a particular course based on his or her geographical location."

Southampton? Closer than, say, London? I live 40 minutes away from central London by train - it would take almost two hours to commute just to Southampton train station, let alone the university itself. Add to this the fact that we are expected to deal financially with accommodation or travelling ourselves (oh, and refreshments aren't provided either), I was not a happy bunny upon reading this.

I couldn't understand why they'd assigned me to Southampton until I realised they were probably basing it on our working locations rather than our home addresses. Aha. Yes, it's probably closer than London to Farnborough, but it's a right pain for me.

So an email was duly sent. Knowing the kind of communication problems I'd had before with regards to YinI and emails, I set it all out very clearly in big distinct bullet points. The preference would be to be transferred to a London course; apart from that I enquired about getting from the train station to the university, whether any travelling costs could be reimbursed (I'm looking at around £80 merely for four days' travelling to and fro), or alternatively whether there might be any available accommodation on-site, since it's during the students' holidays. (Holidays? Holidays? I'm not bitter, honestly...)

A week passed, nothing happened. Aggrieved, I resent the email and received a reply, apologising and saying that "it may have gone to the wrong address".

Now, I sent the email from cyoung@work. I was working in Salisbury at the time, where I normally leave between 3:30pm and 4pm in order to get back to Farnborough around 5pm (at which point I am no longer on company time) - seeing as it was mid-afternoon I set the reply-to for my home address, cathy@cyoung85.port5.com so that hopefully I'd have a response fairly quickly.

So where does she decide to send the reply? Well, to cathy@work, obviously. Yes, she made up an email address by combining the two possible options and then, when I didn't reply, didn't even check whether I'd got it or not.

And what she apparently said, ten days ago, was that both London courses were fully booked and that she was looking into accommodation at the halls of residence for me. Having forwarded me this initial response with no further comment than the brief apology, should I assume that in a full working week there's been absolutely no progress made?

Bah. I'm phoning her tomorrow, which will hopefully be more successful. Apparently some people only speak 'Phone'.