We're learning a new system for my job, in training that lasts two weeks at the center.  (It's normally a work-at-home job.)  It's starting to drive me slowly nuts...  

#1 - I'm in a place with bright fluorescent lights from 8pm to 2am every day.  I'm going home with my head spinning and aching.  

#2 - They keep moving which computer I'm on so we "mingle" and meet new people.  I don't want to meet new people.  I work from home so I don't *have* to meet new people.  I don't know these people, I see no compelling reason to like them, and they're only going to be around for two weeks anyways, before we're all back at our home offices instead.  Why expend energy being used to counteract the light induced headache on meeting people I won't bother to know for more than two weeks?

#3 - It means they're making a new system.  I get that our old system sucks butt, and has no room for improvement, but it's such a different system that it's going to take months to get used to.  The visuals are different, the colors are wrong, the screens take you to the wrong place, what you ask customers is out of order...  AAAAAAAAAH!  Would it have killed them to at least make call flow the same?  Must they change everything?  

#4 - The classwork is piss easy.  I'm done at least 30-45 min before the rest of the class.  They turned off internet access in the room, and got told bringing a book was rude.  So I get to sit there and look stupid while everyone else takes their time.  I was told "you can help others in the class so they get done faster" but that requires mingling and meeting and talking to people that I don't give a flying fig about.  I think counting tiles on the wall sounds like a better use of time, especially at 1am when my ability to deal with stupid is pretty low.

#5 - The instructor talks to us like we're a pack of puppies she's training.  She's using that high pitched, singsongy voice that makes me want to jab my eardrums out with a pencil.  It feels incredibly patronizing.

#6 - No matter how many times I've said "I don't do loud sudden noises well", they don't appear to care...  at least once per night, some exceptionally loud, obnoxious music/video is turned on with zero warning so I could at least pop in earplugs.  I get they've got to show whatever corporate wants...  but FFS, is it that hard to stop by my desk and say "Hey, we're turning on a movie in 5 min, if you need to step out/plug ears".  Wouldn't that be a rather "reasonable accomidation"?

1.5 weeks to go.  /sigh

Shalia

I wonder what it is about training that it always takes place in horrible rooms.  At my former workplace the training room had no windows at all, was always too hot and stuffy, and yes, the trainers were always the most patronising people possible.

Bring headphones... and good luck..yikes what a nightmare...

Gah, sounds awful. Never been through that kind of training myself, but I agree that the forced socializing is ridiculous...it's not as if you'll be working with these people again, right? Well, just 1.5 weeks to go and then you are back home. I hope the trainers ask everyone to fill out an evaluation of the training afterward...they might take your observations more seriously if they saw them in writing, and presumably their bosses would read them too!

Shalia, the whole kit and kaboodle sounds like a complete nightmare, but I reckon I could explain away most of the reasons why they do things the way they do ... none of which explanations justify the methods, by the way! Contradictory? You bet. But they will have half baked ideas on these things, and they will forget to put the bread back in the oven and actually look at how it turns out!

<shakes head in time weary bemusement>

However, is there a copy of acrobat on the machines? You could take an ebook or something like that in on a memory stick and read it while you are waiting for the others to catchup, perhaps?

Oh, I understand the *reasons* they're doing what they're doing...  but it doesn't make it a lick easier to tolerate.  I finally broke down today and told the instructor I'm aspie, because they moved me (AGAIN!), put me under a speaker (ack!) and then had everyone "roll play" a bunch of scenarios.  26 people having individual conversations in a tiny room.  I figured I had to say why I was bolting from the room until they all shut up.  It was that or sit in my chair with my hands over my ears crying until they all got quiet.

I found a dark, quiet, unlocked room not too far from the classroom.  I told the instructors I'd go there if things got too crazy.  At least they seemed accommodating that way.

Oh, see, this is the tricky one ... to tell or not to tell, you could almost call it to h3ell or not to h3ll cos that's where it can end up. I sympathise with you there, but it looks like you might have got some help from them at last.

Good luck

Out of interest Shalia, how many students have they got in the class?  I only ask as I'm a software trainer/developer and I only let clients put a maximum of 6 students "of similar ability" in a class ... I have a motto "I can only go as fast as my slowest student".  The more students there are in the class, the wider the range of abilities, and therefore the slower the class might become for the faster students.  

They should have thought about the range of abilities and unofficially created two groups - slow to middling ability, and middling to advanced ability.  That's not in any way to say those who are slower on PCs don't have other skills at which they're very adept.  This situation makes the training more profitable in terms of freeing up those who learn quickly and can get back to their fee-earning jobs, keeps it more interesting for everyone, and allows more time to be spent with those who need it - therefore ensuring they really know what they're doing and are confident when back at their desk.  Also, slower students are under less pressure to finish quickly because others are waiting for them.  It's better to have a confident slow student at the end of a course, than one whose completely wasted their time and doesn't understand the new system.

My sympathies.  I understand why they've turned off internet access ....  it's likely to distract the slower students who may concentrate more on what you were viewing than what they should be doing.  Like BuckTheSystem says, try and lay your hands on an eBook and put it on your memory stick.  Most PCs have Acrobat Reader loaded ... it might help.  Otherwise, what about catching up with your own correspondence by writing out emails in Microsoft Word, putting them on a memory stick, so that you can copy/paste/send them from home when you return?  Alternatively, they might have WordPad in Start, Programs, Accessories.

Sorry to hear the screen colours aren't good.  Can you have a word with them about it?  I thought employers are obliged to use colours that aren't harsh and are too bright for your eyes if you look at the screen for long periods.  I usually put a slider control on db's and other software I create - allowing the user to slide the background colour of the screen through 65,536 colours.  I did this eons before I was diagnosed as an Aspie ... I just think everyone has a different idea of what's a good background colour on their screens, and the more inviting software is, the more likely it is to be used and enjoyed.  Any chance they might consider this kind of slider control ... it's very easy to put on, and another control can be added to change the colour of the fields in which data is displayed?  (Another slider can be used for controlling the colour of text/colour of headings headings, etc.  As I say, far from difficult - the kind of stuff you get taught in elementary programming classes.  Given how advanced kids are with technology these days, I'm pretty sure many 7 or 8 y/o programmers could do this for them if they scratch their heads about it.  Are they the type of company to listen to constructive criticism from the more advanced/able/faster students?)  

They've got about...  25 or so?  They need to put 1700 employees through the training in about 2.5 months, so I doubt they can make the classes much smaller.  They also need to make sure they've not pulled too many of us off the phones at once.

The colors aren't necessarily displeasing to the eye, my issue really is that the old system is kind of a pinky brown, with a customizable font, and grey pop up boxes, and everything on this new system looks...  well, very similar to this forum, actually.  Blue, light blue, and white.  It's not painful to the eyes or anything, it's just the WRONG COLOR.  My brain is firmly convinced that reservation software is pink/brown.  

There's no adobe, they removed it.  Heck, they removed wordpad and notepad too.  

I wish they'd separated by ability...  or created an online version for those of us who felt we didn't need a classroom setting.  I could have been done with it in a few hours online.

You could try taking your own on a usb drive -- http://www.portableapps.com -- is free and they have office programs, pdf file readers and other software you might need to use but don't have installed on your machine by default.  I carry one with me all the time with some useful software on it.

-K-

Aah, no, don't get me started on "role playing"!  

That happened the last meeting I went to: I had a list of things I wanted to sort out with management regarding resources (lack of) funding (lack of) and teacher's aides for my special needs kids (only one, a student about to go back to full-time studies).

But I didn't get to air any of them, because, guess what?  We got to role play, to "see things from the children's perspective" to pretend to be the children, in other words, and somehow that was going to make us better educators than if we worked on the other problems on my list!  

And I was put with one of my colleagues who I cannot *stand*, the woman is a total slurry with no idea, and had to take part in a bunch of stupid, demeaning (to the children, this woman peristed in doing a very nasty caricature of one of my special needs kids during the course of the "role play") parlour games.  She said it was an "accurate representation" and it didn't harm him since he wasn't there to see it.  I said that was not the point, I felt we should not make fun of children who are learning-disabled in any way.  The director then told me to "lighten up", it was all meant in fun.  

Yock, yock, lots of laffs had by all non-Aspie colleagues.  And me, glowering in the corner.  So I didn't go to the last meeting.  No point, if they're not going to even listen to my concerns.

Alison (who still has steam coming out of her ears in anger.)

Sounds more like you're in middle school or high school and have a crappy staff.

Well it is only two weeks.  You can survive.  It is not a job permanently there.

I would like to work at home but I don't think I could do a phone job.

sound like a ilky training.

I'd be inclined to bring my knitting or crocheting along if they said I couldn't have a book. Then again, I might just be "rude" and bring a book anyway. It should be the trainer's job to help the slower students anyway.