Bojacob's Den

Ah, training.  When management seem to want you elsewhere in the company, they go and train you in a field you’re not even close to interested in.  Such is life.

BUT!  What if the instructor was actually entertaining?  And here starts the story of my “Enterprise Microsoft Project” class.

Instructor:  Hello everyone.  I am here to train you for your newly installed Project server.

His accent hinted that he was Egyptian.

Instructor:  I am a certified trainer and have successfully completed many projects in Dubai in all sorts of areas.  I learned Microsoft Project on my own without anyone’s help.  I explored and I tested and even sent feedback to Microsoft requesting certain features!  (Continues talking about himself for 10 minutes)

Yep, confirmed.

He finally started the class.  An 8 hour class is so much fun y’know?  I was having adult ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and friggin daydreamed about how my upcoming program will function, until…

Instructor:  And so we must specify the deliverables.

He writes “Delivrable” on the board.  Me being the spelling nazi, I caught the missing letter.  So did he.

Instructor:  Hmm, this looks wrong…

Me:  Yes, there’s a missing E near th-

Instructor:  Ahh yes yes!

He writes “Delivreable” on the board.

Instructor:  Yes!  This looks better.

Me:  Uh..

Instructor:  Let’s continue.  Once those deliverables are clear, we can construct blablablabla…

I was suddenly amused and, to the credit of the instructor, I actually started to pay attention.  This might not be so bad after all.

Instructor:  Once we have our project created, it’s time for point number 7:  Tuning

He writes “Tunning” on the board.

Instructor:  Hmmmmm, this looks wrong.

Co-worker:  It looks fine to us, just keep going.

Instructor:  No, I have a big problem with being wrong.

He looks at me

Me:  Um, there’s an extra-

Instructor:  Oh right there’s a missing E again!  Hahah!

Me:  Huh?

He writes “Teunning” on the board.

Instructor:  Yes!  That even sounds correct!  Teunning!  Teunning!  Right!

Me:  Um.

Keep in mind he was talking in a very Egyptian accent, so he actually did make sense.

Instructor:  This is what’s so great about English.  You can speak out the word to see if it’s spelled correctly!  Right?!

Me:  Wh-  Oh, yes!  Of course! :)  Sure.

Co-worker:  Can we keep going?

For a guy that hates being wrong, his statement just could not be more wrong.  Like, damn…

The course continued on, and resumed its boringness.  The instructor asked a question of the class while I was thinking of linking my application to the damn regex class library.  I paid attention, although I didn’t know what the question was.  I saw a co-worker lift his hand up high, hopping in his chair as if we’re in high-school.

Instructor:  Yes?

Co-worker 2:  So the project will finish ahead of schedule?

Instructor:  No, schedules are best kept as they are.  It’s so the project will run smooth (with a very Egyptian accent)

To make his point, he decided to write it on the board.  He wrote “SMOOS.”  I gave up on helping.

Instructor: Which takes me to the next point.  We-

Suddenly the A/C started making a weird air-blowing sound for about 10 seconds where we were all silent, and then stopped.

Co-worker:  What was that?

Instructor:  Heh, I thought it was something else, but it took too long.  Anyway, let’s continue.

I was the only one that laughed :(  I wonder why.

Instructor:  We’ll now take a break for your prayers.

I noticed his wrist had a tattoo of a cross.  I suddenly wanted a tattoo of a crescent :(  I’m not even sure why we’re represented by a crescent, but I think it still looks cool.

I went to the prayer room and began getting myself ready both mentally and spiritually, until I saw an “FCUK” bag sitting in front of me which destroyed whatever mood I was getting in.

Once that was over, it was back to class!  The instructor seemed to be struggling with the Microsoft Project webpage.

Instructor:  There’s a problem with Internet Explorer.

As much as I howl in glee whenever I hear Internet Explorer sucks, I knew it wasn’t the problem in this case.  It was the server itself.

Instructor:  Guys, we are IT!  We can diagnose problems easily and tell where the problem is from!  This is what’s so good about being in IT!

He continued on struggling for a while, then decided to drop the thing and get back to writing on the board.

Instructor:  Since team-members usually don’t find it fun to update their tasks on the server, how do we force them to update?

Co-worker:  Uhh

Co-worker 2:  Punishment?

That certain co-worker was always pretty grumpy and hated.  I now see why.

Instructor:  Yes!  Discipline!

Well, crap.

Instructor:  We must add disciplines!

He writes “Desplinse” on the board, then looks at it for a while, then adds an S at the end.

Instructor:  Disciplines!  Now what if a task has been cancelled?

He writes “Canceled” on the board.  He looks at it for a while.

Me:  It’s missing an S

Instructor:  Yes!

He writes “Cansceled.”  He keeps on looking at it.

Me:  It’s correct  :)

Instructor:  Of course.  I know, I was just making sure.

Me:  Certainly!

I kept on grinning the whole time it was on the board.  Finally, class was over and it was time to friggin leave already.

Instructor:  You have my number and e-mail if you need anything.  I hope you’ve learned a lot in this class and I hope to see you all as project managers!

I’ll admit, I learned a lot :)  The guy knew his stuff and shattered my prejudice in the beginning.  Let that be a lesson to me.

Finally, he writes his name on the board:  “Moammad”

Instructor:  Hmmm…