Start the world, I want to get on

Back from my training course and slowly trying to catch up with the world - it's incredibly selfish of it not to have stopped for that one week.

Rather than allowing us to sleep through four days of lectures, there was an exam script which we had to fill out over the week - six modules in all, apparently the equivalent of a (crummy) A-level - with essay questions such as: "Explain how to best develop a good working relationship with your team, your colleagues, your manager, and your customers." "How would you analyse a report to determine the key information, in order to best assess priorities?" "Why is personal development important for members of your team? How would you deal with a performance problem in your team?" "Explain why it is important to balance performance objectives against resource availability."

Oh, the fun we had. We did learn a few things, though. We learned that 300 operations per week on the NHS go wrong (which generally means something being left inside someone). We learned that McDonald's is a pinnacle of world class standards and excellence, and that the potato market is an incredibly complex one. We learned that Parker Pens are not, in fact, in the pen (or ink) business.

We learned that cutting out the middle man is called disintermediation.

I got back on Thursday, a fair bit poorer for food and phonecalls and disconcertingly unable to type properly after a whole three days without a keyboard. There weren't too many mishaps during the week, apart from inadvertantly boarding the wrong bus on Tuesday morning - it took me a while to realise this because this bus shared the beginning of the route that I should have taken. I eventually discovered I was on the wrong bus, leapt off and crossed over to the other side of the road in order to wait for a bus coming the other way. When it did, ten minutes later, it was the same bus that I'd just leapt off, with the same driver, giving me a strange look as I climbed back on again (who'd have thought?). I believe I kept my head down after that.

In any case, in about ten weeks I should be the prou— the, erm, owner, of a certificate proclaiming my worthiness in the role of manager (my line manager told me that I'm destined for management - something that is probably, I concede, depressingly true). Yay me.