Friday, May 27, 2011

“Motivational Seminar”.

Are there any two words in the lexicon that can chill the blood more? I suspect not.

“Motivational” is bad enough - if you need ‘motivating’ to do something then it’s because it’s something you don’t want to do. Ask yourselves; do you need ‘motivating’ to spend all Saturday in your pants on the bean-bag playing video games? No you don’t – you’d be doing that anyway.

“Seminar”? Basically slang for ‘making a short conversation last a thousand years by inviting a bunch of twats you don’t care about to give their worthless opinions’.

Anyway. I have to subtract two days from my life to attend one of these dreadful things.

I’ll not bore the world with it’s eight-gagillionth blog post about ‘how corporate working life is a bit pants and that’ because – lets face it – wearing a suit every day and working in an air-conditioned office isn’t really as bad as fruitlessly hacking-away at an unforgiving coalface, but I will gift you with a series of ‘motivational’ bullet-points I have been supplied with to ‘keep with me’ during this dreadful seminar next week.

The following BBFC-style advisory does apply:

1) Reading further will potentionally cause your brain tissue to melt into a watery-grey semen-like substance that will begin seeping from the tear-ducts of your eyes, causing you to weep hot bitter spunk and cerebrospinal fluid down your cheeks - making the lower part of your face resemble one of the melting Nazis at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark

and

2) Actually make you shit your pants.

What follows have been cut-and-pasted and not embellished in any way. Connesiurs will recognise the wearingly constant exclamation marks. The bracketed comments are my own, where needed. You have been warned:

“People will never consistently do who they aren’t!” [I’m not convinced that this is anything other than a random collection of words. Unless it is the colloquial ‘do’ in which case it means ‘fuck yourself’. Hmm.]

“People remember the experience long after they remember the price!”

“When you increase the amount of time you think about things you start to add in other dimensions!” [The only thing 'increasing' here is 'fear'. What other 'dimensions'? If Doctor Who is not hosting this seminar I shall feel let-down}

“If you don’t know where you’re going all the roads lead there!” [To where? That literally makes no sense.]

“If my life was a business would I invest in it?” [Currently, I'm not even investing in you mate - and I've not even met you.]

“What you say… will be the way!” [Ok then. "I'm the next James Bond."]

“Pain is the catalyst for action……Pleasure is the continuation of action” [What? Really. What?]

“What you think about you become!” [See above. I am still awaiting my MI6 invite.]

“If you think you can or you think you can’t… your probably right!” [Although the author of this Motivational Speaking seminar ‘pre-prep’ document is hardly motivating me with the fact that he doesn’t know his “you’re” from his “your”]

“Amateurs practise till they get it right – Professionals practise till they can’t get it wrong!”

“The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the quality of the questions you ask yourself and others!”

“It’s not about doing major things differently… It’s about small changes which together have a compounding effect on the end result”

“In a world where the BIG things make little difference it’s the little things that make a BIG difference!”

As of Tuesday, I’ve got two solid days of this. They’re (not ‘There’ or ‘Their’) not even providing lunch. Pray I do not murder someone.

24 Comments:

Anonymous Frogdancer said...

Why don't you leave at the morning tea break? I was at a seminar (for teachers, which are even worse than the horror you describe) and the table of women behind me vanished after lunch.
Pure genius. Wish I'd had the guts to do it.

10:21 pm  
Blogger Ellie said...

You are bound for BIG things. They will probably have American accents.

11:14 pm  
Blogger amphimacer said...

I am the opposite of impressed they hand everyone a printout of a Power Point presentation, which they project onto a screen, and then read the damn thing aloud to you. This makes no sense unless we were all blind or illiterate, but of course then why hand out the copies? The senselessness of these seminars is legendary, to be sure. And remember that your company is spending big money to send you. The money would be better spent buying everybody lunch. Cheaper, too.

11:48 pm  
Anonymous Two sandwiches said...

Remember that the knife that cuts, also spreads.

11:57 pm  
Blogger Debster said...

Back to the murdering already eh?

Try shouting ARSE at random intervals and say you can feel an attack of the old Tourettes coming on and can you pleas be excused.

12:02 am  
Blogger WhatKateDidNext said...

Poor you. It could only get worse if they start with trust building exercises. If you murder someone I'm sure you could plead extreme provocation.

12:10 am  
Blogger punxxi said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

4:28 am  
Blogger punxxi said...

Wear an ipod at all times, tell anyone that notices that the earbuds are your hearing aids. Talk extremely loud.
ta

4:31 am  
Blogger Twisted Scottish Bastard said...

Oh you poor, poor bastard.

Nothing, (even Ebola Virus) destroys brain matter faster than the f*cking pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo spouted by these twats calling themselves "motivational consultants".

The only way they could motivate me if they collectively went out and committed Seppuku.

The only thing worse is when you get a bunch of young "management trainees" who have been on such a motivational course, sort of half remember it and because of cutbacks, they are used to re-spout the half-remembered motivational bullshit at you.
If they ask/tell you to stand on a chair and sing their company song, either tell them to "F*ck of" or kill them. No court in the land would convict.

You have my deepest and really genuine feelings of sorrow.


HAHAHAHAHA

No, really, go sick, get pissed, or abuse a schoolboy with your new vacuum cleaner. ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN ATTENDING THIS.

Sorry to rant a bit, but I've seen too many good guys and gals rendered mentally incapable by these f*cking so-called seminars.

Including me.

I was the first guy who refused to go on the "round the lake morning run" at 5:30 in the f*cking morning. It was supposed to demonstrate the meaning of teamwork. I told them that I had learned the meaning of teamwork in the Army, and that if they insisted that I go, or tried to take any sort of disciplinary action against me I would:
1. Immediately employ a lawyer
2. Tell all the newspapers.
3. Break their f*cking necks as trained to do so by the excellent teamwork training in the aforementioned Armed Services.

I had breakfast in bed that morning.

5:59 am  
Blogger Alison Cross said...

Did these guys get PAID for this guff?

I would have feigned death to get out of this session. If it worked for Des O'Connor at the Glasgow Empire, it should work for everyone.

*thinks* I may take up a new career as a motivational speaker - after all, I've got a book of inspirational quotes lying in the upstairs lavvie.

Ali x

9:10 am  
Blogger Miss Underscore said...

I am glad you're back Tired Dad. Or I was, until I considered the nonsense that is 'would you invest in you own life'? Which has only motivated me to neck Night Nurse straight from the bottle, bite my nails to the quick and search for the number for the Samaritans.

(I had an ex who used to run such horrendous corporate workshops for a living. He was rightly ashamed of what he did. He sells double glazing for a living now and appears to be much more content.)

10:19 am  
Blogger Twisted Scottish Bastard said...

Sorry about the length of the comment TD, but every time I hear the words Motivational Seminar, I kind of loose control.
Sorry again.
*feels BP increasing and brain aneurism ready to blow*
God I hate them....

5:44 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

FrogD: You don't understand. They would find me. They always find you.

E: It's their eery Scientologist 100 watt grins that bother me more.

Amph: Agreed. I wish they'd just email me the presentation so I could delete it without opening it and be done.

TS: Erm Ok then.

Debs: Trust me, I've tried that. They just 'admire' your 'energy'.

kate: Oh it's bound to start with that. It always does.

punx: If I were the sort who owns an ipod I'd probably be hosting the fucking thing.

TSB: I seem to have touched some sort of nerve.

Ali: I believe that is all the qualification you need.

Miss U: I don't quite know what the lesson is there.

TSB: Just breathe.

8:13 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You've probably seen it already, but your post reminded me of this:

http://www.27bslash6.com/team.html

So, if you survive, why not make your next post a Big Brother style, "What have you learned about yourself" post. Wouldn't that be an idea, huh?

2:17 am  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

That's actually made me do an involuntary chuckle - sadly it's so far removed from the harrowing reality of the 'team-building' exercises I am used to I couldn't actually laugh out loud.

And no - that would be a terrible idea.

10:14 pm  
Anonymous Johnners said...

If you haven't read Brookmyre's 'A Big Boy Did It & Ran Away' give it a go, v funny bit about torturing and murdering a motivational speaker (yes, I know that sounds ... odd)

10:17 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

J: No, it sounds superb. I shall investigate.

10:35 pm  
Anonymous Kaija said...

You have my utmost sympathies. I can't sit through those things without getting irrationally angry at the waste of my time and the knowledge that the "consultants" giving the seminar are probably getting paid more than my salary to vomit their BS at us.

I bring stuff to read or do--making my grocery list or to-do lists, crossword puzzles, etc. and if anyone comments on it, I maintain that they may coerce my physical presence but not my mental attention and that I refuse to let my day be completely wasted in such a manner. I think they need to hear these things from time to time.

I hope you survive! :)

1:49 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

K: You, in turn, have my utmost admiration.

5:56 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

GV: Ta. Ermm?

7:05 pm  
Blogger X said...

Thankfully the company that was supposed to be running our motivational training next week has entered liquidation, so we've all got our time back.

Although, I suspect motivational training run by soon-to-be-unemployed grinning positards would be brilliant to watch.

11:24 am  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Shackleford: 'Positards'. Can I keep that?

7:29 pm  
Blogger X said...

Yeah, I was really pleased when I made that word up in the middle of writing my comment. Go ahead. I already am.

9:54 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Shackle: It seems your comment has also gotten lost in Google's new "let's dick about" policy so sorry. And I am using it so thanks.

12:07 am  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home

Go to newer posts

.............