Over the weekend we were in München, a city I'd never seen before. On the whole, the experience was wonderful, except for the fact that I didn't sleep a lot. The weather was nice, the food good and the city beautiful and full of life. We saw street comedians, people playing classical music on a whole variety of instuments, mongolian bands, waterfalls and much more. I got slightly burnt in the face, even.
So this morning I woke up at 7.40 in my usual state of grumpy morning hatred. I couldn't even eat breakfast. Drove over to the office, and If the events described below were bad, this morning was proof that it could actually get worse.
Picture Lieutenant Gruber in 'Alo 'alo. Give him glasses, civilian clothes and the same accent, but make him talk into a monitor profusely. The subject he's talking about is really quite interesting, but at 0900 on a Monday morning I can't say that I feel up to delving into the message hooks and source code for one particular part of a sofware with a man that talks into his own monitor and doesn't look up.
When I look around me, I see that more people have this feeling. Photo's of the weekend, browsing for DVD's on-line or working on cases are some of the activities I see going on in the first row. So what we have here is a failure to communicate. Instead I dedicate my time to browsing through the accompanying training material.
In my previous life at HP there was a Canadian gentleman with a background in acting. He'd moved to the Netherlands with his husband and worked in education. He trained me in the art of delivering training. Which included use of space when in front of a class, projection of the voice, use of interactive materials, quizzes, playing music, drawing stuff... And it's just not happening here.
I just realized I miss Don.
Posted by Chris at April 18, 2005 11:36 AM