Learning

Caturday Quickies: Hardy northern girl 2, winter highways 0

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

I left Toronto around noon and travel north through to about Pointe au Baril was good.

Then the snow started. The winds were high and blowing everything around. White out conditions pertained again.

keepinscore

I was thinking of putting a white square: Mel in white Optima in blizzard.

I was listening to the radio, attentive for not only weather and road reports, but reports of accidents as well.

It was not sounding good. A section of highway 17 west of Sudbury had been closed due to an accident. Highway 11 north of North Bay was also closed.

An accident involving a transport truck was reported around Key River.

Traffic, crawling at between 60 and 80 kilometres per hour since Britt, slowed to a stop.

We resumed a short time later with stop and go for a while, one direction of traffic being let through, and then the other.

When I reached Key River, I saw the transport in a ditch and three other vehicles were mounted on tow trucks for removal. Ambulance and police vehicles were also there and flares were being put out on the highway leading up to the accident.

Then I heard that there was another accident at highway 69 and 64, just before traffic slowed down again. Then the CBC announced that highway 69 was closed from Sudbury to the French River (highway 64 junction).

I’m not sure how long we were stopped. I turned the car off and then on again at intervals to keep the windows cleared of snow and ice, listening to the radio and watching people do the douche, trying to creep up the traffic in the oncoming lane or on the shoulder and try to find room to merge with the traffic up ahead.

I watched the guy in the car ahead of me get out to take an indiscrete piss (not something I really wanted in my image bank) and then get back in his car and turn around. Maybe ten minutes later we started to move again.

Neener.

Just north of the highway 64 junction, I saw the accident site. Four vehicles, two with destroyed front ends, were all being hauled away by tow trucks.

We were on our slow and steady way again, but the radio was still reporting that highway 69 was closed. As I was travelling on that highway, it clearly wasn’t …

Later, just south of Estaire, I saw that southbound traffic was indeed stopped, but northbound traffic was not.

I made it home. In one piece. With no damage to the rental and my sanity intact.

Caturday Quickies

By the way, the kitteh in this blog image is our dearly departed Thufir (Howat, the Mentat Cat)

Caturday Quickies: The further adventures of hardy northern chick

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

So.

After my adventure getting down to Toronto last week, I thought I’d had enough of an adventure.

Seems the universe disagreed with me.

On Monday night, I got stuck in one of the hotel elevators for an hour and a half.

This was a first for me. I’d heard of, and I’ve know of, many people who have been stuck in elevators over the years.  I’ve seen it countless times on television and in movies.

Another experience for the idea file 🙂

Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I’m laid back. I’ll apologize in advance for the true story not being exciting, but here it is, for the record:

I was on the twelfth floor. I called the elevator, it arrived, I got on, and pressed the button for the main floor. The elevator descended, stopped, and then nothing happened.

I pressed the main floor button again, just in case. Nothing. I pressed the open door button. Nothing.

Swearing silently at my luck, I briefly considered hitting the “Alarm” button, but figured that it would only be loud and irritating, and I’d only be able to handle that for a handful of seconds before I went crazy.

So I looked around for some kind of call button, or an intercom. There was a phone behind a brass door beneath the button panel. I picked it up.

It connected me to the front desk. I explained my situation, and the desk clerk advised that he was sending his colleague down to reset the elevator in the control room.

They did that twice. I received three more calls from the front desk with status reports. I think I was expected to be claustrophobic, freak out somehow. The first reset had failed, and the second. They had called the service technician, but he was 45 minutes out from the hotel.

So I hunkered down on the floor and tried to get comfortable. What would be the point of When life gives you lemonsgetting upset?  I kind of dozed, but it was about as useful as trying to sleep on the red-eye back from Vancouver last fall.

The desk clerk called back as the technician opened the door to tell me that the technician had arrived. Um, yeah.

The technician advised me to jump for it. He was funny.

So that was my Monday night adventure.

It made for a great story in class the next morning: so what did you do last night?

And when I told Phil, he laughed at me. Nice one, dude.

By the way, what do you think of my first attempt at using Canva (for the picture)? From the user perspective, it wasn’t bad. Just getting used to the interface. Not sure if the wordage works either. It reflects my personality, but it’s a bit past its best before date 😛

Caturday Quickies

The chaos continues

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Just a quick note about work.

chaos - wikimedia commons

chaos – wikimedia commons

A scant three weeks after beginning my second acting consultant position, it has ended.

Once again, my acting was based on a series of circumstances. Think of them as dominoes, if you will. One of the dominoes decided not to fall, and so I am once again an advisor on the training team.

It’s been three frenetic weeks of planning next fiscal’s learning for not one, but two different business lines, creating third quarter reports, weekly reports, financial reports, etc.

Frankly, I’m a bit relieved. Though I had made the determination not to take things quite so seriously and not to be such a perfectionist about my work, I just can’t do less than my absolute best. This was why I needed a leave after my year and several months in the position. The way things were going, I’d probably need another leave in the spring after my acting was scheduled to end (March 31, 2014).

My pool has now officially expired, however, and I haven’t seen another posting for consultant that I can apply for. I did apply for a senior project officer, but I haven’t heard anything from that application yet.

As a result of that one domino’s misplacement, the training team is now in a bit of a bind. Due to a significant amount of hiring, my manager has over thirty staff to supervise. And all the training and monitoring to arrange. And several other projects to implement before March 31.

She’s advised me that she’ll be leaning on me heavily, so I’m sure things will be interesting. I’ll let you know what I can in the coming weeks.

Next week, I start mentoring monitors and assisting in the design of several action plans.

The week after, I’m away observing the Advisor Curriculum course so that I’ll be able to train it in the future.

After that, we’ll see how things go.

Work madness

/ Melanie Marttila / 7 Comments
The Ren & Stimpy Show

The Ren & Stimpy Show (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To really get the effect of the title of this post, allow me to coax you back to the classic Ren & Stimpy episode, Space Madness. If you’ve never seen it before, take a few minutes and watch.  I’ll wait.

Ok, now that you’ve had a taste, you have to say “work madness” the way Commander Hoek says “space madness” in the ep. Seriously. You have to say it the same way or this won’t work half as well.

I think the last time I blogged about work was at the beginning of October, when my self-funded leave started. Though a fifteen-month stint as a regional training coordinator (consultant) was, strictly speaking, the reason I needed that leave, I am grateful to my employer that such options are available.

When I feel the spectre of burnout or depression, I know I have the means to fend them off.

My leave was five weeks of heaven spent focusing on the art and craft of my writing. I attended the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, and participated in my first National Novel Writing Month, which I won 🙂

I returned to work November 19, which was a Tuesday, and before I’d even settled in, learned that I was to start delivering training the following Monday, training that I hadn’t delivered in about two and a half years (!) It was in Sudbury at least, so I wouldn’t have to travel.

I did spend the rest of the week prepping and revising the training material, though, and somewhere in there found the time to complete my travel request for something else coming up (more on that in a few paragraphs).

Say it with me now: work madness.

This was something that had come up in the five weeks I’d been off. Though I’d only heard the rumours before I left on my leave, I knew the powers that be were interested in “stabilizing” one of the processing positions. This meant hiring, and a lot of it.

The November 25th to December 3rd training was the result of hiring from an established internal pool of candidates.

After the training, the last two days of which I completed solo, I had to work some overtime to get the marking done and summary reports prepared. Four and a half hours added onto my seven and a half hour day. It was a loooong day. The rest of that week was devoted to further revisions—a lot of errors emerged during the delivery—and facilitating a conference call as a follow up to a self-study module.

While I was off, I was recruited to participate in a “training for trainers” session in team dynamics. The idea was to develop some regional expertise so that operational teams could assume delivery of the course. As only of a few certified trainers in the province, I was invited.

It’s nice to be needed.

This would be from December 9th to 13th in Toronto (yes, I know a couple of people who may be displeased to learn that I was in Toronto and didn’t tell them, but really, I was so busy, I wouldn’t have had time—still, my apologies).

Then the next sessions of stabilization training in Mississauga and London were to begin December 16th through to Christmas Eve. I was tentatively scheduled for London. These would all be new hires.

This training would require me cancelling some leave that had already been approved, and missing out on my family’s Christmas celebration, which we hold on Christmas Eve. Further, it would require the approval of some hefty overtime so that I could travel home on Christmas Day.

Work madness!

Still, I was prepared to do it. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

While I delivered training and stood on tenterhooks waiting for plans to solidify—they weren’t even finished with the hiring process yet!—another person was given the acting assignment so she could do the training.

Plus, there were so many people being given acting assignments to cover the training and monitoring for the fifty or so new hires coming into the organization, that I might have to resume my consulting duties as regional training coordinator.

This may require some ‘splaining.

My substantive, or permanent position, is with the operational training team for Ontario. We’d been told for years that our positions were “overstaffed.” This meant that as team members retired or moved into other positions, that there would be no back-filling of staff. We’d have to make do with less.

Prior to my joining the team in 2009, there had been fifteen or sixteen trainers. By the time I joined, we were twelve. Then ten. When I accepted the regional training coordinator position, there were eight trainers left. Then two more received assignments and another was affected by business transformation, leaving five.

Shortly after I returned to the team in September, another of our number received an acting assignment elsewhere. Now that I’m departing again, the number of permanent staff on the team is down to four. That’s to serve all of the training needs of staff in our business line in the whole province. Really?

Though being regional training coordinator wore me out, I was nonetheless disappointed when my assignment ended and I returned to the training team, especially when I learned that the reason I’d likely never get a consultant-level position again was geographic rather than merit-based.

Though the consultant pool I’m in has been extended through to December 31, 2013, this may be my only chance at a consultancy again, ever.

On the team that houses the regional training coordinators, there have been changes as well. The manager has received an acting position as a director and the person taking his place is also acting.

Two other team members have received assignments off the team, and now, due to the number of acting trainers and monitors in this stabilization exercise, another of them will become a second acting manager for the training team.

Though they too had been told that no positions would be back-filled, there won’t be anyone left on the team who’s done the regional training coordinator gig who doesn’t already have a full plate.

And so I’m heading back.

Altogether now: WORK MADNESS!

I’m going to adjust my expectations of the position.  I know now the kind of chaos I’m going to be parachuted into the middle of. And the planning process I worked at so dilligently last year? It hasn’t even started yet.

I think I’m going to start every day with the Serenity Prayer.

Are there other projects I’m going to be involved in, work-wise? Yes. I’m going to be observing and potentially delivering the Business Expertise Curriculum (though I never received the training myself—this may be my only opportunity to take it in) in January and (possibly) February.

I may be training the team dynamics workshop too, though there are currently no plans on the table for it. Things shouldn’t be as insane as they were last year, however. I’ve already been certified. I won’t be going back there again.

In other news, the training certification program has departed our internal college for another training provider. So, no next steps for Mellie.  No assessment, no mentoring, and no training. Unless I get some kind of in with that other training provider. I become eligible to apply to them in March. We’ll see how that works out…

So that’s my work madness.

What’s yours?

All’s quiet on the work front

/ Melanie Marttila / 10 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about the day job.  The reason: I’m burnt.

Crispy critters.  Toasty-oats.  Done like the proverbial dinner.

I’ve been burned out since April or thereabouts.  It was about the same time that two things occurred to me:

  1. Regardless how well I plan and how hard I work, someone will inevitably ask me to throw everything out the window and do something completely different.
  2. Regardless how well I do, I will never be a regional consultant on a permanent basis.

I was just coming down off the high of achieving my training certification and eager to begin the next phase of my development as a certified trainer.  First, I’d have to assess a few other candidates, and then I could begin to coach.

In the next breath, I was told that the certification program was on hold.  Our internal college was in transition and it was unknown when the program would resume.  To date, I have heard nothing.

Though my performance and learning agreement (PLA) was fairly glowing, I knew I would not remain with the team.

I knew this to begin with.  My assignment was part of a deal and was never intended to be permanent.  It was difficult to hang onto this reality when everyone on my old team was telling me that I wouldn’t be returning.  My star was ascending.

Everyone on my new team was eager to keep me.  To his credit, my  new manager never so much as implied there was a possibility.  Fair enough.

I applied for two other positions, both of which I was screened out of because I lacked the requisite experience.  The only way to gain said experience?  At-level assignments, staffed through unofficial expressions of interest.

By the time summer arrived, I didn’t really want to remain a consultant, at least not in the position of regional training coordinator.  The landscape of the program I administered was ever-changing, and, as I mentioned above, all my hard work was largely disregarded.

Then I had to work even harder, and those efforts, too, ended up going to waste.

I began to hope that I would return to my substantive position, despite the reduction in salary.

Unexpectedly, the consultant pool I was in was extended to the end of August, incidentally the end of my acting assignment.  A couple of consultants had retired, and I felt that I might obtain one of those positions.

Until I learned that regionally, consultants were being centralized.  Now, if I wanted to be a consultant, I’d have to move, disrupting Phil and his job, and leaving both of our mothers (still independent, but aging) without a significant part of their support systems.

I’d already made it clear when I made the pool that I would not be moving.

So now, due to geography (ridiculous because most of our work is virtual) I am out of the running, even though my pool has been extended again, to the end of September.  It’s sad, because I have skills that are in demand.

Despite fishing my wish and getting back on the training team, it’s not the same.  I can’t help but feel that it’s a kind of failure.  I know that this is not the case, but my feelings are what they are.  I also feel bitter.

There was a time when I thought I would never be able to rise very far in the ranks.  Though my office is a hub, there weren’t very many opportunities for advancement.

That changed and I moved up two pay grades in as many years.  Now I feel that again, I’m “stuck.”

Don’t get me wrong, the training team is great and our manager is awesome.  The phrase “force of nature” comes to mind when I think of her.  I used to be so happy.  I thought I’d found my work “home” and was content to stay there.

It’s hard to go back when you’ve had your world expanded, though.

I’m just totally burnt out.  Most days I wake up asking myself if I can, in fact, go to work.  I’m so disappointed when I can’t find a reason to stay home.

So I’m going to be taking some time away from work starting October 15.  I’m hoping that the time off will allow me to address some of the negative feelings I have and return to work in a positive and productive frame of mind.

Priorities.  While I have debt, I need to keep them straight.

Does your day job get you down?  Do you have any options that can help you to recapture your love for your job?

Related articles

Training trainers in Toronto

/ Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

This past week, I was out of town.  The purpose: to teach a bunch of trainers the content of Business Writing Made Easy, so that they, in turn, can teach others.

The class was composed of three trainers from one business line and 6 from the other.  BWME Nov 19-22 001Though I may, as I mentioned last week, be returning to the training team in September, there are several possible alternatives that might prevent this from taking place.  I have to be prepared for the possibility that I won’t be able to help train staff much or at all in the future.

This was my fourth time co-facilitating the course, and I’ll be training it one more time this week coming.

The course is 15 hours, or two days, spread over three.  I added a day onto the end so that the participants could adapt portions of the course, present them, and get some focused feedback from the rest of the class.

The class is very participant-centered, that is, there are a lot of activities and the facilitators are constantly using questioning techniques to engage learners in their own learning.  This last is a challenging bit for me, because I’m a word-nerd and a total grammar-Nazi.  I have to restrain myself from talking about the things that I love.

The course went well.  I was able to help one of my colleagues get some experience co-facilitating the course because she may be turning around and delivering it to her business line in the future.  I also got the trainer’s high that come when you see the participants getting enthusiastic about the subject matter.

I think they’re all going to be brilliant 🙂

As I’ve mentioned before, the course involves learning a business letter writing model, tips on clarity, concision, and readability in writing, and a final module on grammar review.  The practical component is a letter that the participants draft as part of their pre-course work and revise as the course progresses.

Actually, looking back, every time I’ve blogged about BWME, it’s been about the process surrounding the course, not the course itself (eeps!).

I learn, or have something confirmed for me every time I teach this course.  I hope that my newly-minted business writing teachers feel the same way.

I still get nervous every time I have to train too, but I hide it well.  I’m introverted (as all get out) and training, though enjoyable, tires me.

I’m reading Susan Cain’s Quiet right now, and will likely post about introversion in the future.  For now, let’s just say that I’m learning a lot about myself 😉

Just yesterday, I saw a post on Facebook by the wonderful Nancy Kress, who said that in preparing for a 4-hour workshop, she was nervous, even after her many years of writing and teaching.

One of the comments that followed mine was that, if you care at all about the subject you are teaching, or presenting about, you will be nervous.  Every time.

I do find this to be true.

Getting back to the course, since it’s only two days, I can’t teach anyone who to write properly or how to use the principles of grammar.  The course is a combination of review and resource-building that we hope will give participants the tools to continue improving on their own.

Practise makes perfect.

bunch of starsThe participants seem to enjoy the word pairs exercise most (affect/effect, practice/practise, principle/principal, further/farther, etc.).  The “snowball” fight is a great energizer, and the subject/verb agreement and punctuation exercises tend to confirm that most participants already know a lot about grammar, it’s just not something they’re aware of in their everyday work.

The key with BWME, as with so many other topics, is to cultivate that awareness, and promote its continuance on the job.

 

Have you had the opportunity to learn or teach something that you’re passionate about? How was the experience?  Do you practise after the fact?  What stayed with you most?

 

Caturday Quickies: What’s the deal with Briefing Notes?

/ Melanie Marttila

The first time I heard the term ‘briefing note’ was when I was serving on a working group to set up a new unit to handle special enquiries for my business line.  Part of my roll on the working group was to source no-cost training for the unit as we did not have a budget.

Of course, I wasn’t informed of this particular lack of resource until after I’d found and started making arrangements for some fairly cost-intensive training on the subject.

The only free resources I could find were a couple of templates on our intranet.  No examples.

The next time I encountered a briefing note was during an exam for the assessment process that resulted in my current acting assignment as a Business Expertise Consultant (BEC).

I was asked to write one for the exam, and using only those two skimpy templates, I managed to write a briefing note sufficient to pass, and apparently with high marks.

Though the position of BEC includes the responsibility of writing briefing notes, I haven’t been clear on whether the reports, learning plans, proposals, etc. that I’ve been writing for my manager fall into that category.

I had had a course on briefing note writing on my personal learning agreement (PLA) for years, and this past week, I finally got the opportunity to attend.

So what is a briefing note?

A briefing note is a document used, as the name implies, to brief high level executives on various topics for various reasons.

I know that sounds vague, so I’ll give you a few examples to clarify:

  1. A news article appears that discusses a product or service that your business is implementing, but no formal press release has been made.  Executives responsible for that portfolio may need to be briefed on the nature of the coverage to see it there may be any impact, positive or negative, on the product’s or service’s release.
  2. An ongoing project needs to be altered due to unforeseen or uncontrollable issues (read scope creep).  The executive officer will need to be made aware of these changes, though they may have no direct oversight of the project in question.  If it’s under their umbrella, they need to know in the event their superiors, or external partners, ask.
  3. A court case involving your business is ongoing, or an appeal has been launched.  You will have to keep chief executives informed of the progress without weighing them down with a lot of superfluous legal information.

Does that help?

What I learned

  • What I’ve been writing does not fall into the category of briefing notes, though many of these documents serve the same or similar purposes.  What I learned in the one-day course can still be applied to the documents I need to produce.
  • If my unit has to write briefing notes of any description, there should be a set of unit-specific templates and examples on our shared drive (there are not).  I think I may have to see if we can gather some of these together (!).
  • Audience analysis is the single most important factor in writing a briefing note, or any other correspondence to upper management.  You need to know what they need to know.  If you don’t, make sure that someone who is privy to this information reviews your document before you submit it.  For me, this would be my manager.
  • Always think in terms of the absolute minimum that the executive needs to make decisions and otherwise conduct the business.
  • The directors, executive directors, and senior executive directors who might see my communications are a little lower on the totem pole than the chief executives to whom a briefing is generally directed.
  • The difference between an annex and an appendix: an annex is referred to in the body of a briefing note; an appendix is additional information that has not been referenced in the main document.
  • Summaries are optional unless the briefing note exceeds one page, or the summary is required in your unit or business line (which would be reflected in your template set).

Other than that, it’s a matter of using proper business writing principles, plain language,

pen.jpg

pen.jpg (Photo credit: new1mproved)

and impeccable grammar.

I have another tool in my writing arsenal now, something I’ll be able to keep in my back pocket until I need to use it.

Do you have to write briefing notes for your employer?  Will any of the information I shared be of use to you?  I won’t claim to be an expert now, but if you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.  The research will help me to retain what I’ve learned 🙂

Caturday Quickies: The certification run

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

This past week, I travelled to Chatham to deliver yet one more session of Business Writing Made Easy.  The critical difference this time?  I was assessed for my trainer certification.  Eeps!

An omen?

What started my week was the journey to Chatham, some six and a half hours away.  Phil dropped me off at the car rental place at 8 am (we only have the one car).  Past experience taught me that I’d be in and out in less than 15 minutes, back home to load up my luggage and boxes, and on the road by 8:30 am.

When I walked in, there were four people waiting, one of them had an insurance claim to deal with due to a dent in the rental, and another was returning a car from another rental company.  The rental location was two employees short-staffed, and I settled in for a wait.

The first car I was given had some issues.  I couldn’t afford to wait any longer, so gratefully accepted an upgrade and was finally on the road shortly after 9 am.

The loveliness of the ETR

The journey itself was great.  For the first time, I used the 407 express toll route (ETR).  In the time it would have normally taken me to reach the hotel near our regional headquarters from the ETR on-ramp, I was exiting at Halton Hills, not far away from Guelph.

The ETR saved me precious time and allowed me to reach Chatham before the end of the day.

Lusting after the Zzzzz’s

I quickly checked into my hotel (more about that in another caturday quickie to come) and toted my boxes to the office, arriving just before 4 pm.  I spent the next several hours setting up the training room with my co-facilitator, Carole.  About 8 pm, we gave up for the night, Carole checked into the hotel, and we enjoyed a late supper at the hotel’s rather excellent restaurant.

I rarely sleep well when I’m on the road, but that first night was especially challenging.  I don’t know whether it was nerves, the trains that passed by periodically all night, or something else, but from 2:25 am on, I couldn’t sleep.  I’d gone to be just after 11 pm, and there’s no way I can function properly with only three hours’ sleep.

Despite that, I met up with Carole for breakfast the next morning, we finished setting up the room and our activities, I met my assessors, and class got underway.

The assessment

Really, I’m trying not to think about it much, because every time I do, I start thinking of all the things I did wrong, all of the technical difficulties I encountered, and all of the other things that could potentially have done me in so far as certification went.

I started asking closed questions.  My SMART Board activity bombed.  Toward the end of the second morning, I was exhausted and running on instinct rather than cultivating the Zen awareness critical to my success.  I curtailed a couple of side bar conversations clumsily.  I forgot participant names.  What’s the expression?  I sucked so hard …

The assessors were very kind.  I’d actually worked with one of them before, delivering workshops in Cornwall a few years ago, but their job is to make sure that I can facilitate in a participant-centered manner in accordance with a set of 18 competencies.  They assessed me for a full day, 1 pm to 4:30 pm the first afternoon, and again from 8:30 am to noon the second day.  I had to facilitate the class solo.

At the end of the first afternoon, the assessors asked me a series of questions about the competencies that weren’t clearly visible in my facilitation and presentation skills.  Things like the room set up, placement of visuals, the joining instructions, utilization of pre-course assignment materials, continuing professional development, and so forth.

At noon the next day, I bid them farewell and was advised that I would be informed of the outcome of the assessment within a couple of weeks.

I’m kind of dreading it.  I think that having to go through the assessment again would be a little bit more than I can handle moving into the new fiscal year.  Thus the avoidance tactics 🙂

The good parts

My co-facilitator bought me a wee gift.  Isn’t it lovely? congratulations

I tried not to tell her she was counting my chickens before they were hatched and just appreciated the gesture.  Carole also asked me to focus on all the things I had done well in the class.  Though I was able to list several things, my mind quickly gravitated toward the negative and I returned to avoidance.

The final day of class, with Carole at my side, went well, and by the end of it, several of the participants not only told us how much they enjoyed the class, and what good resources they got out of it, but also told us that their colleagues were asking how they could get on the list to attend the course.

That kind of validation warms a facilitator’s heart 🙂

After class, we packed everything up, and had an hour or so to enjoy Chatham and some of the quaint shops in the area.

At breakfast on Friday morning, Carole asked me some very helpful questions about the certification process.  She has an interest in pursuing it, and was curious about what might be next for me given her expectations for my success.

It was another very helpful way of keeping my mind from dwelling on all of my short-comings.

I dropped the set of posters I’d borrowed for the delivery of the course back at regional headquarters on my way through Toronto, and was home by 4:30 pm.

At home, Phil reminded me that my focus on the negative wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Being conscious of what I did wrong means that I’ll be less likely to repeat those errors since I am, as always, my toughest critic.  I get so embarrassed about it that I determine never to fall into the same trap again.

It’s all about doubt, something that plagues me in both spheres of my professional life (training and writing).  I constantly question the value of what I do, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

So … the next you’ll hear about this is whether I have, in fact, been successful or not.

Have you been assessed, or tested recently?  How did you feel about the process?  What did it teach you about yourself?

Caturday Quickies: Business Writing Made Frozen, er Easy

/ Melanie Marttila

The road to certification

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Timmins to deliver the second of three sessions of Business Writing Made Easy.

BWME Nov 19-22 001The first delivery was back in November and in the much warmer Toronto.  At that time, I was observed by the person who designed the course and who was, at the time, one of the leads in the trainers certification program.

Then, my hope was to certify in Timmins.  My observer told me, point blank, that I wouldn’t pass.  We then made plans for another delivery of BWME.  Timmins would be a practice run, to let me become more familiar with the material and more practiced in my participant-centered training delivery methods and techniques.

My mentor was unable to continue coaching with me and my observer volunteered to take over.  An opportunity arose for me to co-facilitate Introduction to Participant-Centered Training Delivery in January, further cementing my skills.  My co-facilitator, a recently certified trainer herself, said that I was ready.

In February, however, things began to devolve.  My observer-turned-mentor was assigned a project and could not continue to coach me.  No one would be able to take over.  In a final meeting, we whizzed through the remaining material we had to cover.  I was again told that I was ready for assessment.

My own workload did not lessen and as I started to prepare for my delivery in Timmins, I realized that I was within the six-week deadline to arrange my observation.

Frantically, I contacted the certification program lead.  I had to complete an assignment on the 18 trainer competencies, showing how I’d been working to develop each one, and complete a pre-evaluation interview to ensure that I was, in fact, ready.  She felt confident that I was.

While I worked on Joining Instructions, pre-course assignments, and prep for the delivery, I waited on pins and needles to find out if assessors could be located for my certification run.  Just before I left for Timmins, I was informed that I had one more assignment to complete.  I did, and was propmtly introduced to my certification team.

The drive up to Timmins was lovely.  It was a bright, brisk, winter day and we made excellent time.  We set up the room and started organizing the activities.

That night, the weather grew stormy.  10 cm of snow, followed by another 20 or so the next day.  Then the deep freeze descended and for the rest of the week was less than pleasant.

The training went well, thankfully.  There were a few rocky places, but there always are.  No training ever goes perfectly.  I firmly subscribe to the good enough theory of life, the universe, and everything.  I wonder if good enough = 42 😉

The weather improved for our journey back to Sudbury on Friday.

Sunrise over downtown Timmins, Ontario, Canada

Sunrise over downtown Timmins, Ontario, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week, I strove to catch up on my regular work and still conserve some time to prep for next week’s delivery.  The certification program lead emailed me to once again offer a few words of support, and here I am, with a skimpy weekend between me, a six and a half hour journey, hasty room and activity set up, and a full 8 hours of solo assessment of my facilitation skills.

My main goal?  To remain mindful in the moment.  Yes, training is a Zen kind of thing.

Will let you know how the certification attempt goes, but I won’t know anything for a while after.  The earliest I can have my debrief is April 4 (!)  While the report should be released within a couple of weeks, I’m not certain if they’ll give me a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’ before the debrief can happen.

The nerves come and go in waves.

Keep me in your thoughts trainer types.

Meanwhile, back at the day job

/ Melanie Marttila

What my position/title says I do

I am the acting regional training coordinator for my business line.

The two main duties I perform in the course of my job are to maintain the training plan, and manage the training budget.  These two aspects of my job have been occupying me for most of the past two months.

Challenges:

  • The current year’s training plan has been constantly changing, mostly due to the ongoing business transformation process.  This is the busiest year the training team has ever seen, and the team is losing members. While these losses are due to promotions, deployments, or acting assignments (and are therefore good things to have happened), it still means doing more with fewer resources.
  • We have five functional trainers.  That means we don’t have enough trainers to facilitate the training we are already committed to deliver.
  • Since our plan is based on the fiscal year, which runs April to March, we’re in the home stretch, and I sincerely hope that no further changes come to light.  Then again …
  • Planning next year’s training schedule is already underway. Since this is my first time going through the process, I’m understandably nervous.
  • Our business line is over budget, once more due to the non-negotiable and afore-mentioned business transformation.  I’ve been assured that we’ll be okay, but like the planning, I’m in new territory with budget management.  Further, my position is an acting one and failure could cost me.  Once again, I’ve been reassured, but one thing the last year has taught me is that no one is safe.

In addition to my two main challenges, my job also entails soliciting nominations for training, establishing participant lists, inputting those lists into the learning management system, and a slew of weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports, some of which I’m still not certain about (there’s one quarterly report in particular for which I don’t have access to the information I’m asked to report on = boggle).

Because of my proficiency with SharePoint, the setting up of training rooms has become

The SharePoint wheel

The SharePoint wheel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

one of my duties as well.  Though it doesn’t take massive amounts of time, it’s nonetheless time that I could be devoting to other tasks.  Should I be fortunate enough to become indeterminate as training coordinator, this will have to change.  For now, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done.

The training team would like me to send out the invitations to training too.  This is another task that is not difficult, but it can be time consuming.  Thus, I am extremely grateful to the team for taking on this responsibility for me.

Big shout out to my lovely ladies!  The training team rocks/is fabulous/is awesome-sauce!

What I’ve chosen to take on

I want to become a certified trainer.  So I have been delivering training, meeting with my mentor, and the lead of the certification program.  I also meet with my co-facilitators to plan our delivery, prepare for each training, and complete many of the coordination duties that I assume for other training in the business line.

Though it’s only taken one short paragraph to cover this self-imposed responsibility, it currently eats up more of my work-week than my main duties do.

I’m not complaining (since this is something I’ve elected to do, I really can’t), merely stating a fact.  You already know from my past posts how much I love training, so this isn’t a burden.  It is additional work, though.

Other stuff

These are the things that I do for professional development, sitting on working groups and the like.

My manager is very concerned with the career mobility of his staff, and I am grateful for the attention he pays to this aspect of his duties, but sometimes, I think it’s a bit much.

I have no interest in climbing the career ladder further.  Doing so would mean, in most cases, moving, which I’m not interested in, or becoming functionally bilingual, which I don’t think I’m capable of at this point in my life.

I’ve never had the least interest in managing others, even though my current position means I work closely with managers and some of my duties require what I’ll call para-managerial skills.

So I sit in on conference calls on projects that I have little or no influence over and little subject matter expertise to share.  When I do come across a topic on which I have a strong opinion, I do opine, but often it’s not something that’s acted upon.

Ultimately, many of these working groups result in further training for staff, which strains an already overburdened training team and an already overtaxed budget.

I might figure out how to get blood from a stone (without smacking someone in the head), but short of a miracle, I’m not sure how to do this.

I began the year with the mantra, “I am a leaf in the wind.”  It’s a two-fold touchstone.  First, it’s all about going with the flow, and letting go.  In Managing Transitions, I learned that you have to focus on the things that you have control over and the actions you can take in that context to improve your situation.  For those things over which you do not have control, you have to let go, stop fighting the losing battle.  This is what I’ve strived to do.

The second meaning, for you Whedonesque geeks out there, is that this is a line from the film Serenity.  Hobediah Washburn (Wash) is piloting the titular Firefly class spaceship through a raging battle zone.  He’s dodging the Alliance and the Reavers at once, and it looks like he’s just about to make it through the collisions, explosions, and hurtling debris.  In a zen moment, he says, “I am a leaf in the wind: watch me—” and then he’s impaled by a rather narsty-looking piece of debris.

This might give you some insight into my character, but when I thought of adopting that mantra, I couldn’t stop laughing.  I simply find it hilarious, and I’m striving to pilot my version of Serenity through its battle zone, all the while watching for that deadly metal spar.

Complicating factors

What, you say, there’s more?

Why yes.  There’s always more 🙂

The device pictured is a 128MiB PNY Attaché US...

The device pictured is a 128MiB PNY Attaché USB flash drive. Like many such drives, this model features a removable cap (which protects the type-a male USB connector) and a hole or loop through which a string or wire loop can be attached (barely visible in this photo, on the flash drive’s lower right corner). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of recent security breaches have eliminated the use of USB storage devices throughout the organization, as well as external hard drives, and even CDs and DVDs created to back up important information.

This has the potential to affect the use of lap tops (VPN), faxing, and even scanning.  This last is particularly concerning as my employer has established a centralized imaging program in an effort to reduce hard-copy storage and maintain a green workplace.

I had to return three USB devices even though the information contained on them could never have compromised the security or privacy of anyone.  I have a lap top and a VPN account, though I’ve only ever used it on site, with a network cable, within our secured network.  I don’t even know if I remember my VPN login (!) because I’ve never had need to use it.

I have had need to transport my laptop to a training location, however, and while I make every effort to ensure that the lap top is never out of my sight unless locked up or away, I could be heading for some serious curtailing of my privileges.

My team also recently reviewed our employer’s code of conduct, values, and ethics.  As a result, I had to submit a conflict of interest declaration because my writing is considered self-employment.  As part of that submission, my manager gets to, and in fact must, review my blog.

I’ve read our employer’s policy, and so far as I know, I’m adhering to it.  I’m sure I’ll hear about it, otherwise.

So that, in a nutshell, is my life at work these days.  It’s complicated and I strive for complexity in the midst of the chaos, but there are so many things beyond my control.  I do what I can.  It’s all any of us can do.

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How is your work world shaping up in the New Year?  Is the pace of change complicating Writerly Goodnessmatters? How is your workplace dealing with the growing spectre of security breaches?  Have you chosen to do something beyond your job description?  Anyone undergoing a business transformation process?  What do you do to stay positive?

The learning mutt is circling three times before curling up to nap.