More on training

A trainer said to me recently, when discussing our job:

“Well, I think the most important thing is that at the end of the day everybody has enjoyed themselves.”

It wasn’t a suitable time for me to say so but, leaving aside the cliché, I completely disagree. I think we should, of course, try to make the training enjoyable for people – and the trainees play a role in this too – but in my view the most important thing is that people learn what they came there to learn. It is easy for trainers to turn into entertainers, and if I came in seeking precision knoweldge in a field, and having paid a lot of money for it, I think I’d find too much of that inappropriate.

Training

I spend a lot of my professional time training people in design and programming for the web. I have noticed, disturbingly, that it is easy for some trainers to become arrogant and egotistical, to pontificate to entire rooms and, in short, to lose sight of the fact that they are really only big fish in a very small pond.

Most trainers teach the basics of a variety of applications to beginners, who with sufficient time and self-motivation could learn those basics themselves from the web – and they do nothing but teach. They are not in industry. They perform a role, but should, I think, be modest with it, and aware that there are always others who know a lot, lot more than they do (I am always aware of this!).

There are experts who train, but these tend to me highly sought-after and highly paid industry professsionals who just take time out occasionally to pass on their knowledge. Demand for specialist training is also lower, presumably because most intermediate people already know enough, and are self-motivated enough, to teach themselves the rest.

It is easy to teach the basics to beginners. It is another matter to teach an advanced level to your peers, and a little humility does not go amiss.

Success

My brother is very successful. He’s the most successful person I know. What do you think when you read that? He has a lot of money? He’s famous? No, not those things. If you thought I meant that, then you really need to re-evaluate your ideas of success. You need to ignore the daily bombardment from the press and advertising.

He’s fair, decent, honest and diplomatic. He has integrity. He’s found someone he loves and they’re very happy together. They live on a modest income and appreciate the best things in life, the free things. The countryside, the sea and each other. He does’t have to play any social games or political games at work. He doesn’t have any stress or pressure. He doesn’t suffer any scrutiny from the press or public. He breathes clean air every day in an idyllic environment. He has good health. He has good and genuine friends who he knows do not want him for his fame or money, but simply for who he is. He has the full support of a united family. He has peace of mind. He’s happy with what he has.

In my opinion that is real success, and it has nothing to do with the values most commonly promoted by the media.

Mac problems

I never expected that using my new Macbook would have the effect of really making me appreciate Windows. I previously had the impression of Macs being very nice to look at, with solid hardware, but being too “simple” and not configurable enough. The more familiar I become with OSX, the more this view is confirmed, unfortunately. It helps explain why devotees are so defensive of the operating system. Here are some apparent problems with it, which I have noticed in a matter of days:

• You can only resize windows using bottom right corner. This is especially a problem on the Mac because there are so many floating panels the bottom right corner of a window can easily be obscured.
• The machine’s response when the lid/screen is closed is not customisable. Explaining this topic, Apple simply say: “Portable computers sleep when the screen is closed”.
• Impossible by default to list directories above files in the Finder.
• iTunes downloads all album artwork separately instead of keeping it embedded in MP3 files.
• Impossible to synch mobile contacts with Outlook without using costly and dubious third party applications (no ActiveSync).
• The OS up locks when a network drive disappears during copying, and even “Restart Finder” doesn’t work.
• Function keys are by default reserved by the operation system and cannot be used as shortcuts within applications.
• They treat directories as files and cannot combine contents when over-writing. I have learnt this the hard way in the past, having to retrieve data from a backup as a result!

“Depressed Robbie in Rehab”

Hm, I have already given my views on The London Paper. I make a point of not reading it, but you can’t miss the headline when so many copies are thrust into your path as you simply try to walk around London, and this is today’s offering.

Robbie Williams is obviously an unhappy and confused individual. His plight is evidence enough that money (and certainly fame) do not necessarily lead to happiness, and indeed can often make it more difficult to achieve. But splashing this story all over the tabloids is hardly going to help him.

Again I cannot understand why people are so interested in the lives of “celebrities”. I’m not even interested in what Bono is doing (unless he happens to be saving the world, as is sometimes the case), and he’s actually a very talented singer and songwriter.

The press simply glory in the misfortune of others, especially the rich and famous. We don’t need to follow suit.

Audio setup

I have a lot of MP3s here and I’ve started using Airport Express adapters throughout my flat to send music wirelessly to my Bang & Olufsen speakers. It’s not a cheap set-up, but it works very well and I can recommend it…

Business speak

I won’t go through all the terms like “getting your ducks in a row” and “running things up the flagpole” and so on.. Suffice it to say they are highly amusing, but anyone who uses them seriously should certainly not be taken seriously. But what I will say is even terms like “team” and “Human Resources” should be included amongst these too. It’s not a team. We’re not playing hockey, or baseball. It’s a department, or workforce. Sure, we can all get on well at work, and be friends, but “team” is a cliché, and a misnomer. As for “Human Resources”. What? What was ever wrong with “Personnel”? Why isn’t it still the Personnel Dept.? “Human Relations” is nearly as bad as “Human Interface Device”! We really must try to stand up to these absurd terms when they begin to creep into the language!

Discovering the good life

Aristotle thought we all essentially want the same thing but just get misguided along the way. Essentially, he thought human stupidity, not really evil, was the problem. Socrates too. He thought we all already know the answers, and he just had to ease them out of us (unfortunately he did this is such an annoying way that it eventually led to him being killed by the state). I think I agree with Aristotle.

Money as a release from vulgarity

One of the main reasons for trying to amass some money is that then people can shield themselves from the outside world. It is a shame that everyday society should cause otherwise unmaterialistic people to have to do this, but I have to say I personally am a little tired of inadvertently boarding the ‘restaurant carriage’ on the Underground, where people are eating their burgers and chips without the slightest regard for anybody else (this would embarrass me), being party to other people’s not at all private conversations (this would embarrass me too), and having to turn on my iPod at low volume simply to obscure the loud volume of other ones around me. There seems to be no choice but to “buy” your way out of it.

Advertising Lie

A car company here is currently advertising their vehicle implying that if you have one you will be exactly like the James Bond-esque character who features in the ad. You will have your fortune read in Shanghai then meet the car by chance and drive it through the Amazon jungle and up onto ski slopes.

What kind of men are immature enough to be influenced by this kind of advertising I’m not sure, but a certain breed of highly impressionable and gullible ones evidently are, or the likes this car company (whose name I didn’t even notice) and Gillette razors, whose users all seem to be fighter pilots, would be out of business by now. The reality is that the car is more then likely going to be used as a “Chelsea tractor” and that’s all! It should be advertised as such – or even better as a farm vehicle, which is a use it actually suits.

Nada Surf – Inside of Love

In my view, this track alone establishes Nada Surf as a quality act:

Watching terrible TV,
It kills all thought.
Getting spacier than
An astronaut.

Making out with people
I hardly know or like…
I can’t believe what I do
Late at night.

I wanna know what it’s like
On the inside of love.
I’m standing at the gates..
I see the beauty above.

Only when we get to see
The aerial view
Will the patterns show.
We’ll know what to do.

I know the last page so well.
I can’t see the first.
So I just don’t start.
It’s getting worse.

[Chorus]

I can’t find my way in.
I try again and again.

I’m on the outside of love.
Always under or above.
Must be a different view
To be a me with a you.

Of course I’ll be all right…
I just had a bad night.

Commonplace profanity

Swearing has now become so common in everyday langauge here in London that, although still vulgar to hear, it is becoming devalued. The point being if we all swear all the time habitually, from what lexicon will we borrow when we really want to emphasise a point?

The London Paper

If it wasn’t free already, I would say The London Paper here is totally worthless. Instead I will say it robs you of minutes of your life to read it. Even staring into space would be preferable. This trash is so shallow and sheerly bitchy that it actually makes our tabloids begin to look respectable, which they certainly are not.

Advertising Lie

“I could tell she was the one from the glint in her glasses.”
- Some contact lens firm

It takes a moment to realise what this advert is trying to say, but its principal (wrong) claim seems to be that the wearing of glasses prevents eye to eye contact and that the unfortunate female wearer is therefore destined to be sad, lonely and neglected in terms of romance.

We will have to come up with a name for this cynical and often-seen mode of attack by advertisers, if there isn’t one already. ‘Emotional blackmail’ would be fine (‘buy our product or you will be sad and lonely’), but I think we can go stronger than that and call it ‘emotional bullying’. Incidentally, the claim here is not only false, but as far as I’m concerned it is contrary to the truth – I find women in glasses particularly attractive and always have done!

If I could even remember the company’s name I’d urge you to boycott them.

Celebrity

Why, oh why, is such a disproportionate amount of attention paid to “celebrities”?

A set of portraits of the model Kate Moss has been commmissioned for the National Gallery.

What? Why?

As far as I can tell there is nothing remarkable about her at all. She’s not particularly attractive and I have never heard her say anything profound. She just seems to be a waster. Literally wasting her money and her life, contributing nothing. There are thousands of more attractive and more substantial women than her – more deserving of having their portraits in the National Gallery.

Actors too. They act. We should evaluate them on their performance. Who cares what else they do? I certainly don’t. The plumber sorts out my sink, the actor entertains me, why would I care more about the private life of one than the other? I can see no reason – I’m not interested in either.
It’s very sad when people are more interested in the lives of others (who couldn’t care less about them, incidentally) than they are in their own.

We seem have to a society now where people are famous for no reason at all other than the fact they are famous. It’s circular, and sad to see. (Personally, I would hate to be famous, and feel a little ambivalent about even posting my views up here.)

Think about all the unsung heroes. Think about the sensitive people who find themselves stuck in squalid council estates. Think about the abused, the orphaned, and about those who put their own happiness second to care for others first. Think about the paramedics and the police (yes, the police), the toilet attendants and the others – all the others – who do so much more for us every day than wasters like Kate Moss ever do. Also think of people who really are exceptional. People like Jonathan Miller, Richard Dawkins, John Barry. Put portraits of them in the National Gallery, then maybe we’ll have a better society. Don’t dumb down. Don’t say to people “admire these people because they are just as unremarkable as you – and yet we have made them famous”. Aspire to be more, be the best you can be, totally regardless of the shallow values of the press…