Representing the Training Department

Last week, there was a call for volunteers to sit at our "booth" or table at the university benefits fair.  I imagined sitting at a table in a large conference and meeting space that we have in our building, handing out information to the people who would drift by in ones and twos, answering questions that they might have.  I was going to be working with one of my fellow-trainers, who has a similarly wry sense of humor.  And it would be okay, although I knew that this was not my preferred situation.

Earlier this week, I learned that my table partner--let's call him Jim--had switched to the afternoon because no one else had signed up for that spot, which left me alone at the "table."  Fast forward to this morning.  I dress carefully, professionally, and express some anxiety to co-workers, one of whom is kind enough to check to see whether I will be alone.  I won't be, as it turns out.  But she tells me that there was some strategizing done on the previous day, and briefs me--briefly--on the situation.

Rather than occupying the entire meeting space, our benefits fair occupies half of the area, which is divided to allow for the retiree fair on the other side of the partition.  Enter the complication.  First, we are giving out tote bags.  So people are coming to our booth to get a tote bag because they need it to put their stuff in.  But they are not particularly interested in talking to us in the meantime.  So now they have to talk to us to get a tote bag.  Ugh.  Selective distribution of swag.  Second, our services are only available to active employees.  Retirees are not eligible, though they are likely to be interested.  So now I have to make small talk to determine whether someone is eligible for our services, small talk to make sure they are really interested, and then use my judgment about who gets a tote bag and when.  So I'm a gatekeeper for the swag, and I have to disappoint people.  And I am opposed to both of those things.  In fact, I'm the person who has to force myself to talk to the people at the tables to GET the swag, and all the while, I'm trying to sneak away.  Why did I think it was a good idea to volunteer?  Oh yes.  I thought it would look good.  Trying to play the game. These things are important.

When I go downstairs, the room--half the size I expected--is lined with tables, with tables in the middle, and people EVERYWHERE.  I have to look through the people (okay, maybe it wasn't so dense--not like Mardi Gras or anything) to find our booth.  Then, I have to walk around the room to get to it.  I realize, to my utter dismay, that there is a huge project-board--like the social studies fair type--on the table.  Our materials--flyers, brochures, coaster--are on the table in front of the board.  So I have no place to hide.  When I walk up, my co-table person is occupied, so I have to stand awkwardly, watching her engage with others, with nothing to hide behind.  I am mortified.  The next person walks up, and I hear her say, "Our classes are for active employees."  The retiree she addresses laughs and makes a joke about being active, but not an employee, and being more active now that she is not an employee.  And I am greatly relieved, because to my mind, this is a social blunder.  I do not like distinguishing between people, or assuming things about them (retirement status) because of what I observe (that they look older than X age).  This is not what I do.  Then I notice that my co-table person is not wearing her name badge.  Neither am I.  I mention it, and she suggests that we take turns getting the badges.  I may talk to one person--a few whole sentences!--about what we do, and I might let two more pass by as I try to judge their ages and work status.  When it is my turn to get my badge, I mention that I might not be back down if I can find a replacement.  My intended repalcement, however, does not bite.  I return downstairs, completely agitated.  This whole process has taken perhaps 10 minutes.  Perhaps less.

So what's the point, you ask?  Well, the head of our department is a complete extrovert.  She thrives on performance.  And frankly, I have my moments, but they are better-defined moments that do not require unstructured interaction.  And even then, I overthink and obsess about small mistakes.  It's what I do.  I spy her going in to the benefits fair as I return.  I confess my unease, my anxiety, and I know that my expression and manner conveys my level of discomfort.  She is sympathetic--but asks, "Even though you teach?"  Even though I teach I have this anxiety?  Indeed.  Teaching is different.  And she has no idea how I beat myself up when I teach, but that is a different story.  When I teach, I know who I am supposed to be.  It is about persona. And yet, in some ways, I'm not who I should be when I teach (when I train).  I am not an expert.  And as a trainer, that's what I'm expected to be.  But when I stand at a table (not behind) and hand out materials, my role is less clear.  I want to help people, and I can answer questions.  But I do not want to foist myself upon them, and I certainly don't want to be in a gatekeeper position, assessing who they are.  I'm not even crazy about greeting them first.  I like to give people space--because I would like them to give me space.  But selling our services is not at all about giving people space--and it's not about anything like teaching.  A teaching (or training) persona will not help in this situation.  Nor will being myself, because myself would never do the things required of me.

I was able to escape, and I felt immediate relief.  I have never felt quite this level of anxiety in any social situation--possibly because when I have been most uncomfortable, like when attending conferences alone, I was able to slink away and hide out of site.  I was not required to talk to people.  My supervisor's supervisor, probably feeling like she was shielding me, said that she would say I wasn't feeling well.  That's not entirely false--I wasn't feeling well at all.  But I'm not exactly ashamed of feeling the anxiety.  It was a false situation, and I am actually a pretty straightforward person.  I was being put in a position of being impolite, unhospitable--by my rather stringent Southern New Orleans standards; being rude to an older, grand-parently person is not done, and while I wasn't exactly asked to be rude, well, I just wanted to give them a darned bag and answer questions.  *sigh*  Part of me feels that I should have stuck it out.  But that part of me is only able to feel that way now that I'm out of the situation.

So I'm left thinking about the differences.  I do get anxious when I teach sometimes, but I have prepped and prepared.  I have props and crutches.  I know what I know, and what I don't.  I would say that unexpected questions don't phase me, but that depends on what I'm teaching. When I'm teaching Adobe Acrobat Pro, they definitely phase me.  I'm not sure if it's exactly about authority, because I had a kind of authority in the booth.  Maybe the "booth" authority feels more false to me, or more authoritative.  I can deny you a tote bag based on who I think you are; if I'm offering you information or learning, I'm offering it to everyone, and I'm offering everything I have--with no strings attached.

Engaging the Personae--Teacher vs. Trainer

What Training Can Learn from Grading--and vice versa

 I'm actually finding, doing training, that rather than having a sense of freedom because I don't have to grade, we are a bit haphazard in how we decide what we want our participants to learn and how we get there.  I think that more activities and discussion can be used in *school* instead of tests to show that the students are learning; on the other hand, I think in the training arena, we should make certain that we really do know what we're looking for when we do evaluate whether our methods are effective.  The grades/no grades people have the potential for a great conversation--that won't happen, sadly.

But what about the children?

Slate published a piece today titled (or perhaps subtitled?):  "Getting a literature Ph.D will turn you into anemotional trainwreck, not a professor."  The author speaks from experience.  There are several poignant moments, like this:

"So you won’t get a tenure-track job. Why should that stop you? You can cradle your new knowledge close, and just go do something else. Great—are you ready to withstand the open scorn of everyone you know? During graduate school, you will be broken down and reconfigured in the image of the academy. By the time you finish—if you even do—your academic self will be the culmination of your entire self, and thus you will believe, incomprehensibly, that not having a tenure-track job makes you worthless. You will believe this so strongly that when you do not land a job, it will destroy you, and nobody outside of academia will understand why."

And this:

"When this happens to you—after you have mailed, at your own expense, the required 60-page dossiers to satellite campuses of Midwestern or Southern universities of which you have never heard; after you endure a deafening silence from most of these institutions but then receive hope in the form of a paltry few conference interviews; after you fork out $1,000 to spend your Christmas amid thousands of your competitors at the Modern Language Association convention; after said convention, where you endure tribunal-style interviews in hotel suites where you are often made to perch in your ill-fitting suit on the edge of a bed; after, perhaps, being invited to a callback interview at a remote Midwestern or Southern campus where your entire person will be judged on the basis of two meals and one presentation; after, at the end of all this, they give the job to an inside candidate they were planning to hire all along—when this happens, and it will, it will feel as if the entirety of your human self has been rejected because you are no good at whatever branch of literature-ruining you have chosen."

And it is published at a time when I find myself in a nice, stable job that pays well and bores me to tears, prevents me from spending time with my children during between-semester and summer breaks, and makes me spend 40-hours a week in an office in front of a computer.  6 hours every week or two, I train people on how to use software.

It is published when I find myself stretching tentative fingers in the direction of academia after a 2-year, unwilling hiatus.  (I did actually publish an article during this time, but they solicited me.)  I am beginning to send out abstracts, and beginning to apply for a handful of jobs.  This article mirrors the horror out of which I have been crawling over the last 10 months.  And it makes me fear being beaten down again.

But what I want to ask now, is what I will tell to my children.  I have been an idealist and a dreamer.  I have believed that what we want to accomplish, we should be able to accomplish with education.  My goal was to do what I loved--to have a job that allowed me to talk about books, just as the author says (though I do think I escaped literary theory relatively unscathed).  And now I find myself (as I was telling my son about an hour before reading this) in a situation in which I have no one with whom to talk about books (though I do write about them, and have a friend or two who follow)  It didn't seem like a huge ambition.  It seemed imminently attainable.  And now I find myself in an office, reading, learning, and repeating motions on Microsoft Office.  It's a good job, but it's not for me.

So what do I tell my children?  I want to tell them to aim high--that they can do anything the put their minds to.  But I don't want to set them up for failure.  I think about the things I love--the things that lied to me.  Like the Muppets.  Remember "Rainbow Connection"?  Remember "Bein' Green"?  They taught us that if we were just the people we were meant to be, everything would turn out right.  If I finally give up believing that, I will not know who I am, so I guess I'm not there yet.  But is it right to build up hope in the next generation?  I have a son who will be entering college.  He's not really thinking about what he wants to do, but he has dangerous liberal arts tendencies, as I like to say.  But to him, and to my daughters, do I say what I want to believe, but which has not at all been fulfilled in my life?  

Or do I tell them to pick something safe--something that they can bear--something that will pay the bills--and move through life like everyone else?

I Have Been... (Pt. 3)

I have been...  (wrapping up.  Read the first parts here and here.)

Anticipating

The continuation of several series that I have been reading.  First, Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger, author of the Parasol Protectorate series.  This one came out in February.  It is the first Young Adult novel by the author, and while I was happy to see that she didn't push the envelope of sexual encounters as so many YA authors do, the story as a whole felt a bit flat. I felt that the author might have felt constrained by the prospect of writing for a  younger audience, and the level of character development, plot development, and wit that I expect from this novelist were not there.  It was the "set up" for a series, if you will, so perhaps the future novels will be better.  It was entertaining enough, and you can get the first 3 chapters free!

 I am anticipating Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Princess this month, and looking waaaay forward to Diana Gabaldon's next Outlander book, Written in My Own Heart's Blood.

I'm not generally a series reader, so this is new for me... 

Wishing

For a job that had more flexible hours and allowed me to practice creative acts of reading and writing as part of my job.  Right now, my job is 40 hours/week--8 to 5.  I teach 6-hour technology courses more or less weekly (less right now), and spend the rest of the time learning more about the software I teach, memorizing the course manuals and activities, correcting projects for our certificate programs (You really should have used tab stops here...), and listening to technology instructional videos.  Yum.

 I would, ideally, like to put in my teaching hours and then have time to spend on professional development activities that make sense to me, that engage me.  Ideally, this would be flexible, though I am getting more used to working at an office.  I would love to have the summers off and a longer break between semesters to spend time with my little ones.  Does any of this sound familiar?

Second on my list (and these two switch places) is a bigger apartment or a house to rent.  3 Bedrooms (right now we have 2 for 5 people) and TWO WHOLE BATHROOMS!  Right now we have 1.5.  Storage would be great, too. 

Loving

That I can read and write again.  My writing is bordering on scholarly/professional at times, and perhaps I'm working up to something.  I submitted an abstract to a real, academic conference on Friday! The benefit of not working as a scholar/teacher is that intellectual activity doesn't have pressure attached.  I can really do what I want to do right now, and I needed this.

And if you're here, check out today's post on Booknotes from Literacy-chic!

I Have Been... (Pt. 2)

This middle part is brief, and probably not as interesting as the first and last parts, but here is part two of my update (continued from Monday):

I have been...

Watching

I don't watch much TV.  Or at any rate, I don't watch much TV that feels like separate shows.  We frequently watch How It's Made, Restaurant Impossible (but not as frequently since it's all about the drama), Chopped (a great show), Phineas and Ferb (great children's programming!!)  But there's nothing that I have to see.  In fact, shows that require a commitment on my part (like Downton Abbey) simply don't work for me.  Especially dramas.  If I want a continuous plot, I'll take a book.  They wait for me.

Looking

At a computer screen.  10 hours a day.

Feeling

Caught between two worlds--university staff who used to be university faculty.  Full-time worker who would rather be home more with her kiddos.  Trainer who would rather be a teacher.

Conflicted about remaining in my current job vs. re-entering that abyss of misery, false-hope, and despair that is the academic job market, especially since I feel out-of-step with my discipline.  I don't think I share many values, visions, or ideals with academia--or at least, not the upper echelons.  But maybe what we do share is what's important...  Inquiry.  Desire to contribute to knowledge.

Also feeling like seeing myself as a seamless whole made of many different roles, threads, interests, and creative impulses is fine, but to base a blog on that concept is not possible because blogs need to have more focus, at least in my opinion.  There at least needs to be one aspect of identity ("Catholic," "Mother," "Academic," or "Catholic Mom") that shapes the other parts.  And I think that's why "Words, Words" has given over to other blog concepts.

I Have Been... (Pt. 1)

I have been watching this blog languish as I work on two others:  Booknotes from Literacy-chic and Teaching, Training, Blogging, but I still have some real affection for this, my first entry into blogging.  Most of the people who know me as a blogger know me through this blog, though I'm not sure whether it's listed with search engines any more.  I suspect not...  So while I don't know that I'll blog regularly here, I do want to stop by--perhaps monthly--to post a little update.  This was always my introspective blog, so it feels appropriate.  My friend Chris gave me the idea, but I'm going to make mine a 3-part series.

I have been...

Writing

Oh so many things lately!  Nothing creative right at this moment, except insofar as criticism is creative (and I think it is!  In fact, I feel like everything I write has an element of the creative, which is why I love it.)

First, I am writing on what is now my primary blog, Booknotes from Literacy-chic.  I am blogging my way through Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and I am working on book 3, Voyager.  This is not a book review project, but a "notable moments" project.   Rather than discuss any one particular thread, theme, or issue, or the book as a whole, in a "big picture" way, providing lots of examples to illustrate my point, I am isolating scenes, moments, paragraphs or lines that resonate--with me, or with the work as a whole.  Sometimes these "notable moments" posts connect, suggesting ways in which they might form a whole literary argument, but...  I'm not ready to go there yet.

More recently, I created the blog Teaching, Training, Blogging in order to have a place to blog the connections between university teaching as I learned to practice it, and training, which I am doing now.  Although training makes a big issue of the needs of adults, the ways in which training literature seeks to engage the adult learner resemble the ways in which university instructors talk about engaging the undergraduate learner. However, training has a biased and unfavorable view of university teaching, while higher education sees only utilitarian aims in training.  I want to bring these together, if for nothing else, to help me stay connected to the higher education classroom and learn from my present situation.

Finally, I have been volunteer-blogging new updates for Marc Gunn on his blog, and occasionally on Celtic Music Magazine.  Marc is a Celtic musician, promoter of Celtic music, and producer of numerous podcasts including my favorite (and really, the only one I listen to regularly), The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.  I have loved his podcast for years, and it's fun connecting with Marc's efforts to promote Celtic music while developing my "blogging for others" and "blogging for promotion" skills.

Reading

Blogs, for one.  I have taken to perusing my feeds in Google Reader again, taking a look at the blog circle that I once thought of as home.

Series, for another.  I am enjoying reading fiction series in a way that I haven't in years (if you count The Chronicles of Narnia and the Little House books).  I am conflicted about this.  It's one thing to read a series when the author is dead.  There's no waiting involved.  But living authors just keep writing, which keeps me reading.  I enjoy Rick Riordan, Gail Carriger, Cassandra Clare (well, mostly), and Diana Gabaldon in particular, each of whom has one or more series on the go.

And finally, eBooks.  I have a Kindle Paperwhite now.  I thought long and hard about it, but I do love the immediacy of always having--or being able to acquire easily--a book that I want.  It makes for a different kind of reading experience, especially since I like to write about what I read.  And I do still like physical books--of course--but they only occupy one location at a time, which means that if you leave the book at home, it's at home, and you can't get to it if you're not at home.  With my Kindle books, I have them on my iPod, my Kindle, my work computer, and my home computer--oh! and on Google Chrome!--and each of those locations can come in handy.  But I sometimes make poor reading choices based on free or $0.99 books.  Ugh.  I'll never get those hours back...

Listening

Mainly, I listen to the sound of my my keyboard clicking, or the deafening silence of my office.  But in the car, to and from work, I listen to the The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, my Celtic playlist (largely comprised of songs I discovered through the podcast) and my Alternative playlist.  This morning, I was listening to Cake.

This meme has 9 items, so I'll be posting again on Wednesday and Friday!  Hope you've still got me in a feed reader!