Three months ago I started working for a new company. At first I was assigned to a manager that was very busy. He told me this was temporary. Later I got reassigned to another manager. My new manager had the time to explain some of the benefits available for working at our company. Once a year we are allowed to attend 4 days worth of training, with a $2500 budget to attend a class. That sounded good to me.Our project is about to receive input files in XML. So I thought it would be good to attend a class on this topic. I looked at a catalog for a training company. They had a 4 day class. That matched the time my company gave me off. However the cost was $2650. I asked my manager what we could do. She said I needed to get her boss to sign off on the extra $150. Her boss told me that his boss had to sign off.
It took a couple calls. However I finally found out that the full price for the course had been approved. Today I started the first day of training. The instructor had a strong Polish accent. At the beginning of class she told everyone to pay attention at all times and not do anything else. She said we needed to learn while we were in her class. If we did not like this, she recommended we leave and sign up for another instructor. Harsh!
So far I have received a morning worth of instruction. It has been a pretty good introduction. Since XML itself is not complicated, we have learned the entirety of the syntax of the language. The remaining days will be spent learning different XML applications and languages such as XML Schema. I think I am going to stick it through with this dictator instructor. It would be too much trouble to reschedule the class with another instructor.
I got a good feeling at lunch today. I ordered some Chinese food, and got the following fortune in my cookie:
You're transforming yourself into someone who is certain to succeed.
