Training other people is hard work, I am very glad I am not a teacher. I spent 4 days trying to convey the importance and workings of some Six Sigma tools - luckily not on my own but with 3 collegues who know a lot more than me. It was interesting but draining and at the end of the day not what I want to do every day. The training has left me somewhat scarred as whenever anyone uses the word mean I think, 'Ah and spread!'.
One of my collegues I was training with is Angela who flew over from Phoenix to lead it. She is good and nice and a pleasure to be around. Which isnt my normal summary of collegues, most might reach nice and ok to be around, but only between 9-5. But Angela is different, better than most at explaning statistical tools and also very open an interested so a treat to take around Brighton and to talk to. We had a bit of an interesting time training as 1/2 the class came there under duress and it became obvious that they are less than keen on the facilitators from their organization. So by end Tuesday we had 20 very unhappy bunnies on our hands, Angela had not been training Tuesday so it was me and the other two managing to make them this miserable. But Angela managed to magically turn it around Wednesday and by end of that day they were eating out of her hand.
On Friday Amy and Mark had a combined Stag and Hen weekend starting at Glastonwick ale festival, out at Coombe Farm. I had been clever enough to get us tickets early, which turned out to be lucky as it sold out. But that becomes irrelevant when you have a ticket. Angela came with me and JD and we had a great time drinking ciders and perries, we found two favorites after going through them all and stayed on these all night. Lovely setting on the farm and some interesting music playing in the background. Such a mixed crowd also means the bithching opportunities are unlimited and JD was shocked (well surprised) at our comments. I realized I normally bitch with my Swedish friends rather than my British ones, or that I am more evil in Swedish and my British friends are just a lot nicer than I am (or Angela is as it turns out...) Great night, got the free bus home and the bus driver got lost, but JD helped him find the way to Southwick square in the end.
Saturday Big Phil turned up from Belfast and we all went up to new Wembley to see Muse. The stadium is very pretty with the completely offcentre arc - designed with a logo in mind as we cant see it serving any purpose. There are lots of food, drink outlets and also plenty of toilets, all clean and with loo rool - key customer requirements - ouch done it again, backlash from training. We spent the day admiring the view over London, drinking and listening a little to the pre-bands. Rodrigo y Gabriela were v good, Dirty Pretty Things I missed most of, Streets were so so. But Muse themselves were great, due to sheer size of stadium they looked like ants. Their music is stadium music, all pompous and great for air guitar / air drumming fans. The best thing with the day for me was us all doing mexican waves during the Streets performace, 50,000 peeps or so deciding to entertain themselves...
Getting back home felt like it was going to take forever but it was surprisingly smooth!! I am soooo impressed with the organization of trains, subways and queuing. We made the last train, had to stand up all the way down to Brighton, but made it home in just 2 hours from leaving Wembley, 1.5 of that being on the train from Victoria.
Today we are going to Mark's surprise 40th birthday party and then I am off to Delhi for a week of sweating like a dog and wondering about if this mouthful will make me sick or if I am lucky.
No comments:
Post a Comment