They (they, the managers, senior managers, assistant vice presidents, vice presidents, and so on) here at this place that I work at have encouraged us to complete online tutorials outlining our standard operating procedures. Once all their employees have completed the course they can claim "All employees are familiar with and practice our SOPs." or whatever sentence in their annual statement of goals has prompted this policy. They have hired some online tutorial firm to develop, design, implement a web-based program that will kindly lead all us non-managerial sheep through our "sop's" Good for them.
These tutorials are inane. Structured like a human resources powerpoint presentation information (usually non-pertinent) floats, bobs, weaves, and slides its way across the page and settles in its place with a cute wobble, followed by stock .gifs of accountants having cheery discussions with their managers. The managers and suck up accountants then seem to listen closely, full of enjoyment to the SOUNDTRACK of the stupid web-based power-crap presentation. THERE IS NO REASON FOR MUSIC. Each page uses about five seconds of "animation" there are approximately seven pages to each presentation, there are 25 presentations to get through. This takes some time.
It's not that I don't want to learn all about our standard ops. but I will learn much quicker if I were presented with a word document outlining the salient facts. No animation, no pretty colors, and OMG IF YOU DO NOT MAKE THAT ELEVATOR MUSIC STOP I WILL FIND YOU AND CRUSH YOUR BRAIN
Right, sorry. I understand there may be some out there that need a cutesy little sky-blue border to sweep across their screen in order to learn. BUT EVERYBODY ELSE HATES IT.
At the end of each presentation there is a quiz. A multiple choice, check-all-that-apply, true-false quiz. You need to score 90% to pass. The numer of questions vary from four to seven. I will do the math for you: 25 points a question up to 14 points a question. If you get one wrong, you fail. AND HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE DAMN MUSIC AGAIN.
I've muted my computer. If I do have to spend an hour and a half waiting for these "cutesy" animations to finish I refuse, refuse, refuse to listen to that damn music. I've also taken to skipping the info and going right to the quiz, then randomly clicking answers. You'll never get 100% on the first try, but after about three or four you start guessing correctly. I complete the tutorials in about the same time that way, and now, I don't have to bother learning anything. I have seven more tutorials to get through. "I am familiar with our standard operating procedures."
Score another one for corporate america.
-Tom
recommended download
The Gin Blossoms, Jealousy, and I'll Follow You Down
Better Than Ezra, Roselia, and King Of New Orleans
2 comments:
I also used the trick of going straight to the questions, failing the quiz a few times to learn the correct answers and then passing it with flying colors. Here's a tip I picked up. If you come across any questions involving the abilities of what you're learning, always guess on the side of the program having the ability.
For example: True or false? When you switch panels in the computer program, the program automatically saves the changes to the last panel. Of course, this is true. The training quiz would never point out a weakness of the program.
I had a good week's worth of computer "training" in my first month at work. Biggest waste of time. I think my manager knew it too, but we're slaves to bureaucracy.
good tip. very insightful. the questions that really get me are the "check all that apply" those suck.
they especially suck because even when I resort to checking off every possibly combination of the five choices the stupid program rearranges the answers each time. so it's not like TFFFF, TTFFF, TTTFF, because they're never in the same order. gah. stupid tutorials.
-t
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