I'm not sure what to call this genre, but you know what I mean: corporate motivational tapes, and tapes designed to make you a more effective [whatever you happen to be].

Ever watched one? Were you coerced into doing so? Did you get anything out of it? Did it make you want to head up to the clock tower?

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Answers

I haven't done a human resources thing like you described, but I did once get forced into something similar. Social security here has a thing they call work-for-the-dole, whereby we, the unemployed pondscum of the world, are forcibly farmed out to charitable/non-paying organisations for a period of six months in return for the continuing payment of our social security money (plus $20 extra a fortnight for travel expenses, a sum which did not in fact cover said expenses in any way). If we refused to take part or dropped out, we were repaid with an 18% pay cut. It's conceptually sound, I think, but a horror in practice.

Part of this process was running us all through this training programme type of thing, those of us on the program (about ten at a time), we were given advice on how to do resumes, doing job interviews, teamwork, occupational health & safety, etc, that sort of thing. I got nothing from these meetings except a vast hatred for the people I was lumped in with (though I felt sorry for the chap who was put in charge of us, having to deal with such an unpromising and resentful clump as us). It was quite soul-crushing to think that someone in social imagined I had anything in common with any of these people, though not as soul-crushing as the position they gave me at my local Salvation Army op shop. I will never have a kind word to say about the Salvos again if these ones were representative in any way.

There was one moderately amusing moment during this training thing, though one fella had been through it before so he knew all the platitudes that they give you and they just tripped off his tongue at all the right moments. Led to one amusing exchange when he said something like "if you have a dream, you can do it" and someone else (not me, unfortunately) responded with "yeah, but the last person who said that got shot, didn't he?"

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditchestaxpayer-funded journalling at its finest

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

One company I used to work for (telemarketing firm) had an all-saturday thing where we did a whole bunch of stuff--going out into the parking lot and making huge squares of rope while blindfolded, shoving people through a webwork of ropes, then going back inside to fall backwards and let people catch us, or stand in a circle and toss tennis balls back and forth; we had to say something positive about our job while the ball was in the air and the ball couldn't stop moving.

We also spent a fair amount of time brainstorming exactly how the company worked, how it was organized, what our Culture was, that stuff. What we found out was that our company was badly structured, poorly trained, and a bunch of autonomous groups which had little or no interaction with each other and a lot of resentment concerning the perks that each group got.

The response to all this from management? "Huh."

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Nope. Gotta love the tech field for that. never even heard a peep about that stuff.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Yes, I was required to watch motivational videos of how to be a better salesperson when I was a telemarketer (summer job in university). What a nightmare. I'm completely unsuited for sales (yay!). I kept answering the questions wrong - "What is your goal?!" Er, to sell some beef? "No! You want to outsell every other person in the organization!" Eugh. And yes, it was beef. Sold over the phone. Can you imagine? I am now convinced the place was a drug front. I mean, really.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000

Yes. We had things like this when I worked for a leasing company as a programmer. The company was kind of heavy in the marketing/sales direction. They drove me insane. Luckily I was blessed with co- workers who could be counted on to make witty remarks that made the time pass more quickly.

At my current job, tech writing for a computer company, I have to go to these all hands meetings where the brass hats tell us what's going on with our products and company. These were actually requested by people here, so somebody likes them. My style is to be very focussed on what I'm doing and rather uninterested in anything else, including the company's health, so I often sneak out early. At least they usually serve food.

The most annoying thing like this I ever had to attend was when I was laid off by the leasing company and they sent me to a week long thing to help me get another job. You can imagine how motivational that was. On the other hand, I have to admit that it helped me a lot, and I ended up changing careers.

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2000