It's Time to Play the Game

When you join a new organisation it is vital that you receive the best possible training, both for your own good and that of the company. Training comes in many forms – from the essential information you need to know on day one to avoid being burned to death, using the wrong toilets or being shouted at by the fierce guardians of the reception desk. Then there is the on-the-job training which, aside from sniggering from some of the more juvenile of My Readers, is generally given at ones desk by a competent (or at the very least available) colleague. Then there is silly training. The training department’s equivalent of the Pointless Meeting. It is a device which lets the trainers justify their time while not actually doing anything important. Such was the course we attended on Wednesday.

It opened with a general intro by the trainer. Welcoming us to The New Place. He was a little surprised to find that the most junior of us had been there four weeks while the average was around five months. This was, he told us, supposed to be Day One stuff. But, reality aside, he said we’d plough on regardless. This is the Game of Life, he said, and it is designed to teach us a bit more about The Company. We’d been given a book when we first started which detailed everything a new starter could want or need to know. We would be playing a board game based upon this already-falling-to-bits tome. Oh joy.

He thought it would be best if we got to know each other a little better by playing a pre-game game. Again he ignored the fact that most of us had come from The Old Place and/or had been working together for the last five months. Even Piglet was there (she of previous columns). The format was that we had a piece of paper with sixteen hobbies, characteristics, events and so on listed and we had to find a person who could say "Yes" to each one. A different person in each square. With me? How this was meant to encourage actual interaction rather than wandering round saying "What have you got?" and each person quickly becoming designated "The person who plays the piano" or "the one that can speak a second language" or, in my case, "the vegetarian". Sadly, after some ten minutes of pointless collecting of names it was noticed that the game was impossible as there were only fifteen people in the room and sixteen squares. Bugger. So the Kit Kat went to the first person to put their hand up. Like I could be arsed.

Say what you will about The New Place but someone in their IT buying department must be sleeping with the right person in Finance. The lobby has just had a seriously expensive and utterly pointless plasma screen installed so Management can play us some poor quality PowerPoint slide shows. And this particular training room had a touch sensitive screen on the wall which was our entry way to the Game of Life. Counters were moved by touching the screen and dragging them. None of your recycled Wheetabix packets here. This was high tech. Except it didn’t work. The software kept crashing and the trainer didn’t quite know what to do.

The questions were dubious too. There was one about why The New Place has an equal opportunities policy and the answer was that they wanted to ensure all appointments were made on merit. One of the multiple choice answers which was wrong was that it was a legal requirement. I forget the exact wording of the statements but the implication was that Equal Opportunities was something the Company chose to do rather than had to do which isn’t actually true. Maybe they do passionately believe in the principles but the fact remains that most (if not all) are enshrined in the law. The whole contest seemed designed to put the company over which is fine when you’re playing to an audience of newbies but we old and cynical hands don’t buy it. Not that it’s a bad place (not compared with The Old Place) but their spin is rather inept.

So we had an hour of answering questions about The Company. I hadn’t read the book, naturally. How utterly dull do you think I am. Well I’m not. Not quite. I had stuff to do that day. I knew that the Company was formed in 1861 because it was the first fact I came to on the first page during my only attempt to read it. It’s like the names of the five Great Lakes – it sticks in my mind long after the info has ceased to be of us. Sadly I can’t spell all five names so I won’t list them here.

I know I’m sounding terribly sarcastic and grumpy when all they were trying to do was give us info in a less than usually boring way. But the absolute lack of common sense was astounding. For people in their first week it is probably a good thing. But making us do it after all this time (and when it took two of us from our team, which left two people instead of four to do the work of eight) was nonsensical. Did I learn anything? No. Was it enjoyable? No. Did I get a Kit Kat for being on the winning team? Yes. Did I do anything to achieve that win? No. Did I like the Kit Kat? Yes.

But I said nice things on the course feedback form because I’m nice. And they gave me a Kit Kat.