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May. 20th, 2004 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anigoI got back from New Brunswick last night. What a SWELL trip. I had to do two manager training sessions - one in Moncton on Tuesday and one in Saint John on Wednesday for a BIG Oil conglomerate which shall remain nameless. A manager training sessions is a two hour training session where you talk to managers about the EAP and tell them what to look for in a "troubled" employee, and what they can (and cannot) do about it. I have never done a manager training before and in theory I should at least sit in on one before I actually do one, but alas, it needed to be done and there was nobody else around to do it, so there you go.
I well and truly kicked ass. In the first session, with about 30 managers, the HR manager would not stop going on about how wonderous I was. About how I said all the things that the managers needed to hear. One of my analogies, which is not actually part of the training session, but is something I use to break the ice and cover my own ass, is explaining "dear in the headlights" syndrome - and how I suffer from it, and how many managers suffer from it. (It's when somebody asks you a question and your mind goes blank and all you can do is sit and stare at them) I use it to bluff my way around questions that they ask me that I don't know the answers to, but also spin it into a training about how everybody does it from time to time and that the perfectly respectable response to the syndrome is "I don't know, let me think about it and I'll get back to you". That making a decision on the spot, particularly with deer in the headlight syndrome is a BAD thing. What started as my "cover my own ass" technique ended up being one of the three most helpful topics of the session. My Oh-my-god-intensive-two-weeks-from-hell-HR course was so helpful too. I came away from the first session saying "Damn, they thought I had a clue!! I came away from the second session saying "Damn, *they* thought I had a clue too! Hey, Maybe actually have a clue! I knew all the jargon, I talked the lingo... it was cool. The HR manager in the second session asked me if I went into HR right out of university. I said I hadn't that I had worked for a competitor of theirs before I came to this job. Which wasn't really lying, as I didn't actually ever say I had finished university.
Richard came along with me and we really had a nice couple of days without kid or dog. The hotel we stayed at wasn't the best, but all in all it was very nice. We stopped at Margolians on the way home and I bought this incredible little flowered sundress cut on the bias. It looks like something out of the 30s. We also stopped at the house where I lived in Saint John from when I was born until when I was three. I found it pretty much by memory, which was kind of cool. I meant to take a picture but I forgot. On the way home I found that Richard had taken pictures for me while I was doing the manager's session. (awwwwww...)
And now I'm back to work. I have a tonne of stuff to do, so what am I doing here??
Off I go.
Hey, did I mention life is good?
I well and truly kicked ass. In the first session, with about 30 managers, the HR manager would not stop going on about how wonderous I was. About how I said all the things that the managers needed to hear. One of my analogies, which is not actually part of the training session, but is something I use to break the ice and cover my own ass, is explaining "dear in the headlights" syndrome - and how I suffer from it, and how many managers suffer from it. (It's when somebody asks you a question and your mind goes blank and all you can do is sit and stare at them) I use it to bluff my way around questions that they ask me that I don't know the answers to, but also spin it into a training about how everybody does it from time to time and that the perfectly respectable response to the syndrome is "I don't know, let me think about it and I'll get back to you". That making a decision on the spot, particularly with deer in the headlight syndrome is a BAD thing. What started as my "cover my own ass" technique ended up being one of the three most helpful topics of the session. My Oh-my-god-intensive-two-weeks-from-hell-HR course was so helpful too. I came away from the first session saying "Damn, they thought I had a clue!! I came away from the second session saying "Damn, *they* thought I had a clue too! Hey, Maybe actually have a clue! I knew all the jargon, I talked the lingo... it was cool. The HR manager in the second session asked me if I went into HR right out of university. I said I hadn't that I had worked for a competitor of theirs before I came to this job. Which wasn't really lying, as I didn't actually ever say I had finished university.
Richard came along with me and we really had a nice couple of days without kid or dog. The hotel we stayed at wasn't the best, but all in all it was very nice. We stopped at Margolians on the way home and I bought this incredible little flowered sundress cut on the bias. It looks like something out of the 30s. We also stopped at the house where I lived in Saint John from when I was born until when I was three. I found it pretty much by memory, which was kind of cool. I meant to take a picture but I forgot. On the way home I found that Richard had taken pictures for me while I was doing the manager's session. (awwwwww...)
And now I'm back to work. I have a tonne of stuff to do, so what am I doing here??
Off I go.
Hey, did I mention life is good?