It's always better when we're together

Alex and I recently found "our song:" Jack Johnson's "It's Always Better When We're Together."

And today was further evidence that my life is better when I'm with Alex.

We were scheduled today to do a training for a group of about 25 counselors from an area agency, who shall remain nameless. Because the group was so large, Alex and I decided to teach the class together. We used this system last Friday for a large class that I had, and we found that it worked well. Having an extra pair of eyes, ears, and hands makes our big classes go much smoother, especially with all of the hands-on computer-based stuff in the training.

Additionally, we collaborated with the agency to set up a private class just for them. We normally don't do that, but with so many people needing training at a time, we agreed to work with the group so their counselors could be out of the office at one time and so that they wouldn't soak up all of the seats at our other area trainings. The agency made arrangements for the class to be held at a site we had never used for training, and insisted everyone would bring their own laptop and connect to the site's wireless Internet for the day.

That was the idea, anyway. Not everyone brought a laptop, and the wireless was in and out all day. Some people spent half an hour just trying to stay logged in to the program, let alone actually practice using it. Everyone was frustrated with the flaky Internet connection, and it just affirmed to us that in the future we should stick to our own tried and true training sites and training method. We tried to be as flexible as possible to accommodate this agency, but it just wasn't working out.

And sadly, the technology issue wasn't our biggest problem today. Because all of the counselors knew each other already, they felt very comfortable at the training. A little too comfortable. They talked over Alex, didn't listen to instructions, and basically did their own thing. They were in and out of the class constantly, they were checking email (when the Internet wasn't failing), and made up their own scenarios instead of doing the scenarios assigned for training. Almost everyone was inattentive, unruly, and just plain rude.

Given the general behavior of the class and the challenges with the wireless, we called our stand in regional coordinator, Jessica May, for some advice. Together we decided that we needed to stop training for now and reschedule the second half of the training at a time and place when we could effectively regroup and get through the class. I pulled the site administrator out of the class, we talked about the situation, and agreed to get back in touch to finish the training. They seemed to understand the reasoning behind the decision to call the class, but it didn't make the situation any easier to resolve.

Nonetheless, Alex and I handled the situation, and we're proud of ourselves for putting an end to that madness. This training put a big wrinkle in our day and our mood, and we're basically still reeling from the morning. What a disappointing, unproductive, and downright hurtful way to spend the day. We're not sure if our treatment was due to the fact that we're young and female, but it doesn't matter--we deserve to be treated with professionalism and respect. Hopefully the story will be different the next time we see this class to finish training.

To be continued...