It Never Rains...

I am still here, I'm just buried under a mountain of lecture notes and books. I don't actually attend campus, my lectures are held in various locations and towns. The upshot is that I have to have a meeting every morning before setting off just to make sure I am heading in the right direction.

Friday morning was a classic example. I was up bright and early and headed off to my training for the day. It took me almost two hours to get there as the traffic had come to a virtual standstill, due to 'rain'. The world and his wife had decided to ditch public transport, (well we are into the season of soggy leaves on the rails and soaking wet bus seats), and take to the road. Anyway I digress, so I arrived a tad late.

I managed to discreetly slide myself into the back of the room and position myself at a work station at the rear. For the next thirty minutes I got my head down and tried to catch up. It wasn't too difficult as it was systems training and already having used the systems for some time I discovered that I already knew most of what they were doing. In fact it seemed ridiculously basic. Hey ho I thought, not all of my new trainee friends have worked in the organisation before so I guess they have to cover everything. Then it was time for a break. I looked up at the trainee sitting next to me and smiled. Somewhat to my confusion they didn't look familiar!

After scanning the room for a familiar face I realised to my horror that I didn't recognise anyone. I had in fact gatecrashed a training session for new starters. After checking with the tutor and making a hurried phone call to one of my fellow trainees I discovered that I should have been at a different location altogether in another town. So my head in a fog I jumped back in the car and drove for another hour until I reached the 'new' venue. The tutor was on form, and there was to be no discreet entrance this time. He ensured that a place had been saved for me at the front of the room and insisted on doing a lengthy recap of the mornings lecture, much to the chagrin of my fellow trainees.

But on a positive note I now have a wonderful team of assistants who kindly text me the times and venues of my lectures.