AED offers lots of lunchtime or morning workshops, which I've been trying to take advantage of, since they're free and sometimes interesting. It's been very hit or miss so far. The guy talking about Argentina was interesting. The Spanish conversation table was disappointing. The "how to work in diverse teams" workshop today was just crap. [Will asks whether I really expected any better from a "diversity" workshop. Yes. I did]. The facilitator was just way too fond of the sound of his own voice. He babbled on and on, throwing buzzwords around and making meaningless PC statements. We did a couple of activities which were interesting, and I really wish I could have heard more from the other workshop participants. We had good discussions whenever the facilitator shut up for a couple of minutes.
It was interesting though, because looking through the packet he handed out, it looks like a lot of the stuff we were supposed to do and/or discuss [but which we didn't have time for because the guy kept yammering] was very similar to the curriculum that I wrote for workshops in City Year. I guess the facilitator makes a huge difference. That was something that City Year generally did well. No matter whether it was a corps member or staff facilitating, the activities were well done. And what blows my mind is that this guy makes money doing these workshops. This is his job. It's pretty disappointing, actually. Companies are becoming aware that they have to address cultural differences, but the best they can do is look up "diversity" in the phone book and call in someone to do a four-hour workshop. There. We've addressed diversity.
Interesting little interaction this weekend. Miks was over for dinner, and we were hanging around the kitchen talking, and Katie (landlord) was walking around doing stuff to get the house ready to show. The previous residents had removed the closet doors from the bedrooms, so Katie brought them up from the basement to be put back on. Will and I had speculated that we would probably be able to figure out how to reinstall the doors. Katie comes into the kitchen and says, "So, Will, if you want to try to figure out how to put up those doors, that would be great." I said something like "well, we're all engineering students, so we can probably manage that." She kind of looked at me like
...
right...
And then she turned back to Will: "Yeah, so Will, if you want to try, that would be awesome."
It doesn't bother me that much, I found it funny more than anything. But surprising.
It was interesting though, because looking through the packet he handed out, it looks like a lot of the stuff we were supposed to do and/or discuss [but which we didn't have time for because the guy kept yammering] was very similar to the curriculum that I wrote for workshops in City Year. I guess the facilitator makes a huge difference. That was something that City Year generally did well. No matter whether it was a corps member or staff facilitating, the activities were well done. And what blows my mind is that this guy makes money doing these workshops. This is his job. It's pretty disappointing, actually. Companies are becoming aware that they have to address cultural differences, but the best they can do is look up "diversity" in the phone book and call in someone to do a four-hour workshop. There. We've addressed diversity.
Interesting little interaction this weekend. Miks was over for dinner, and we were hanging around the kitchen talking, and Katie (landlord) was walking around doing stuff to get the house ready to show. The previous residents had removed the closet doors from the bedrooms, so Katie brought them up from the basement to be put back on. Will and I had speculated that we would probably be able to figure out how to reinstall the doors. Katie comes into the kitchen and says, "So, Will, if you want to try to figure out how to put up those doors, that would be great." I said something like "well, we're all engineering students, so we can probably manage that." She kind of looked at me like
...
right...
And then she turned back to Will: "Yeah, so Will, if you want to try, that would be awesome."
It doesn't bother me that much, I found it funny more than anything. But surprising.
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