a couple of pacific gripes about effective parenting
i spent a good part of yesterday afternoon in a small group seminar entitled "effective coaching". it's the sort of corporate ra-ra that anyone who has a middle management job comes to despise: they're long, dull, patronizing, and they generally involve some lame form of role playing.
this seminar most certainly delivered as expected.
the facilitator started out the seminar by asking if any of us have children. two of us did. two of us didn't. well, that's not true. three of us did, but my kid lives in a box on our mantle, so i left that unsaid. the woman next to me sort of froze up, looked at me, then looked away. she knows what was on my mind.
i would have been perfectly content for this topic to not have come up again, but it was a common theme throughout -- "how we foster our children is how we should coach our coworkers and employees la te da ta da da te de de da" -- you know what was on my mind.
so, yeah, i've got my mind elsewhere -- i've become a less than ideal participant. not an easy thing to be, or to have in your group, especially considering that there were only four of us. i spent a good bit of the time off in lala land, not that i'm convinced that anyone really noticed. i am the mayor of lalaland, afterall, so i must have looked normal to the outside observer.
a couple of things that kept me tuned in (for lack of a better word). role playing: jumping jeebus i hate doing this. i was given a piece of paper with a scenario on it -- i was to coach an employee who was being a bit disagreeable. if the spirits had been willing, i could have been given the cantankerous card. we all know, i play it well. i might have even won an academy award.
an oscar would keep hans company, at the least, i can just imagine how laura and i would look at liza's at the oscar night after party.
and, one more thing: specific. the facilitator doesn't say 'specific', she says 'pacific' - wtf is going on with that?
take my life, please.
this seminar most certainly delivered as expected.
the facilitator started out the seminar by asking if any of us have children. two of us did. two of us didn't. well, that's not true. three of us did, but my kid lives in a box on our mantle, so i left that unsaid. the woman next to me sort of froze up, looked at me, then looked away. she knows what was on my mind.
i would have been perfectly content for this topic to not have come up again, but it was a common theme throughout -- "how we foster our children is how we should coach our coworkers and employees la te da ta da da te de de da" -- you know what was on my mind.
so, yeah, i've got my mind elsewhere -- i've become a less than ideal participant. not an easy thing to be, or to have in your group, especially considering that there were only four of us. i spent a good bit of the time off in lala land, not that i'm convinced that anyone really noticed. i am the mayor of lalaland, afterall, so i must have looked normal to the outside observer.
a couple of things that kept me tuned in (for lack of a better word). role playing: jumping jeebus i hate doing this. i was given a piece of paper with a scenario on it -- i was to coach an employee who was being a bit disagreeable. if the spirits had been willing, i could have been given the cantankerous card. we all know, i play it well. i might have even won an academy award.
an oscar would keep hans company, at the least, i can just imagine how laura and i would look at liza's at the oscar night after party.
and, one more thing: specific. the facilitator doesn't say 'specific', she says 'pacific' - wtf is going on with that?
take my life, please.
posted by justinian at 8:58 AM
8 Comments:
Man, I hate those. Hate hate hate. Luckily in academia they are fewer and further between.
"The mayor of lala land" is making me chortle. I think I have a position on lala land's city council, as well.
Glad you survived.
I HATE people who get up in front of others and try to coach them on how to do things right when they do not even have a good grasp of the English language. I worked for a guy who would say "pacific" and "bidness" and "posta". I hate all the "holier than thou" shit anyway, but when they do something so utterly stupid, it boggles my mind.
Damn, it still pisses me off.
Oh, ick. Those people really piss me off. Pacific...jeez. It's like the President! "Strategery".
I should have exercised the newcular option.
HA!
Perhaps she went to the George W. Bush school of elecution....
Harvard, Yale or Hamburgler University?
That's the thing - this woman did ask me directly, and she's a woman who doesn't have children herself.
I'm wondering how appropriate a question that this is, all things considered. Maybe I should say something - or maybe it's just mountains and molehills.
Laura mentioned this, and I've been thinking a bit about it today ... I work in an industry (airline) that has a larger than average percentage of potentially childless families; ie gay and lesbian singles & families - now, I understand that gay and lesbian families have children, but until very recently it wasn't necessarily such a common thing, when comparing gay and straight families.
So here we are - a larger than average pool of potentially childless people ... and yet, this is the only way for us to convey a message of fostering a positive work culture - by suggesting that we treat our employees and collegues in the same respect that we treat our children?
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