Training Course

I am back at my old workplace for a training course on Visual Displays. My manager has given me the wrong start time and I arrive late, flustered and feeling like everyone is staring at me, which they are. Everyone is asked to introduce themselves, say where they work and "tell us an interesting fact about yourself!" I want the ground to open up and swallow me. I hate addressing a group of strangers: my hands sweat and pulse races. A woman tells us that she has recently bought a caravan, another that she has an allotment, another woman tells us that she was once in Emmerdale. There are no men on the course. My interesting fact is that I when I moved to Australia, I also moved my cat with me, at great expense. I fear my fact is more crazy than interesting.

After a powerpoint presentation, we are put in pairs to create our own displays using an array of tat that libraries are now forced to sell in their desperation for revenue. The woman I am paired with runs off and grabs a stack of notebooks, a magnifying glass and packets of sweets and begins arranging them on a table. I hover near her and ask if we should "decide on a theme." When she ignores me I rummage in a box of children's toys and begin arranging them on the same table but separate to her display. She gives up on her own display and disappears. After she has gone, the course leader compliments my display. "It's simple but it works!" When my 'partner' returns she dumps a toy lobster, pencils and various animal shaped pencil sharpeners over 'our' display and I actually tell that I liked it how it was and she gets a bit huffy and turns away to resurrect her own display. Yeah, back off bitch!

I meet a couple of librarians from the other prisons and we go out for a cigarette and assess the relevance of the course considering we don't sell anything in the prison libraries.

It feels like the longest morning of my life and I am so glad when it ends. Afterwards, I chat to a couple of my former colleagues, or rather they whinge about how much they hate their jobs and mention how lucky I am to have left.  I do feel happy to no longer work there, especially when Close Breathing Colleague tries to corner me as I'm leaving but I have to get back to the prison and can't spend an hour listening to her talk about feng shui like I used to do. I'm free!