"Training day" at work yesterday- should have brought my gun!

[Wcross]

I could have used it to off myself early on and not have to suffer through the day.

They decided rather than have us "waste" a vacation day they would require our attendance on January 2nd for "important" training. I would have had a 7 day stretch OFF otherwise which I guess was unbearable for them.
They also decided to bring in all four shifts for it which means the night shift people had to come in when they would normally been asleep.

The day started out at 5:30am with breakfast AND sign in. At 6am we started a "Building teamwork" class. We tossed balls around to one another. We held hands and squeezed. We had 10 people walk around the group (of 103 people) blind folded stepping on our shoes. We then did some kind of maze thing. I honestly didn't learn a single thing other than management is bat-shit crazy.
We then had our quarterly safety meeting with the head of safety and security taking two hours to tell us how many ways we could get fired.
After that we went back to our departments, sat through 2 more hours of people talking. I was allowed to leave early at 3:30pm! wu-who.

When I got home I felt like crap, much worse than I do after a normal day of working all day.

Why do corporations do this to their employee's? I LEARNED nothing of value and felt pissed off all day long. What are they thinking?

[texanwitch]

1. They do it because they can.

It is a power trip.

They video tape the whole thing and sit back a have a good laugh.


I am glad for my job.

[LeftyMom]

2. This is how they train you about the ownership society

They own you. Your time and your brain are not your own.

[Patiod]

3. We had a fish-tossing thing once

Inspired by some crappy "who moved my cheese" type book based on the people who throw fish at the otherwise cool Seattle Pike Place Market.

They gave us all stuffed fish

The next day, they laid off 10 people (and the company only employed about 30).

When I left, I put my stuffed fish in the pile with the rest of them next to the boss's door

[Wcross]

8. uh-oh- maybe I will get canned when I show up Friday? n/t

[Patiod]

10. Nah - they had schedule the fish thing WAY before the layoffs

And stupidly opted not to cancel it.

I thank God every day for a job where the training is actually useful and optional (we have lunch seminars on topics like using the specific software, or introducing interesting new techniques in our field). For free pizza, I'm okay with giving up my 1/2 hour lunch!

[xchrom]

4. i HATE that crap almost more than anything else in life.

that ''power of positive thinking/team building/working/communicating -- and whatever else it all is.

it's like a new religion -- or something.

[Wcross]

7. I felt so "drained" at the end of the day.

I work on my feet, 12 hour days. I never feel as bad as I did when I got home yesterday. My buttocks was sore from sitting in uncomfortable chairs for too long. I had a monster headache from suffering through this utter nonsense.
What ever happened to just doing your job? We will never be a "team" where I work. If the company wants to have a "training department", fine. It shouldn't mean we have to suffer so they will have something to do.

[trof]

5. Yer kiddin'...right?

'Fess up...you got this from a Dilbert strip.
Sorry, bub.
:-(

[Wcross]

6. Serious as a heart attack.

I spent all day feeling like I was in an episode of "The twilight zone". It was extremely odd.
The new training manager gleefully exclaimed "we will be doing fun things like this every quarter"!

[LSK]

9. I am never leaving this job

I dont want to deal with that kinda crap.

:scared:

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Even worse is when you do it to yourself...

I went to a three-day seminar that I thought would be instructive, but it was a week's worth of those touchy-feely games and chanting shoved into three days. No time to talk about what we might have learned or what the point of the exercise was because we had to get to the next one on schedule.

And I paid for it myself.

[Wcross]

13. Oouch! At least you had the option to leave though! n/t

[underpants]

16. Actually I think you just hit it on the head

This is basically training employees to motivate themselves (other than for pay or against being fired) and also if they aren't motivated MANAGEMENT has an out "Hey, we gave them training"

There is no management anymore. It is an almost dead skill.

[amitten]

12. It's a pathetic substitute for genuine employee/er relations.

They can't manage people for shit (or make them happy) so they bring in a bunch of "inspirational" freaks to do it for them.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

14. At least your bosses now have something interesting to put in their TPS reports.

[driver8]

15. They do it so you never forget who pulls the strings.

Plus, upper management just hates to see happy employees!

For example, I work for a very large multi media corporation (ok -- Warner Bros.), every department on the lot got the day after Christmas off except ours. (Heavy work load, we were told.)

As a result, almost everyone has started to refuse overtime and weekend work.

Fuck 'em.