Training Glitch

Well, it seems we have hit a snag in our training schedule.

When I first started with the department we had yearly training that took an entire week. We got all of the 40 hours required in one week and we were good for the rest of the year.

They told us we were the "Highest trained and poorest paid CO's in the country."

I believed the second part, but not the first.

Then about three years ago they stopped doing that and our training dropped from five days to three and then down to two. We did Defensive Tactics and Weapons and nothing else.

Not sure exactly why they did that. They just did it. We all just shrugged our shoulders and said "Okey-dokey" and went back to work and didn't think about it any more.

Now all of the sudden they are telling us we have to have our required 40 hours of training every year or there will be "consequences". And that it is entirely our responsibility to make up those extra hours before the end of the year.

Let's see... I have been waiting to get Field Training Officer training for over two years now. I am "on the list" or so I'm told. I've been trying to get them to give us some training for this "Fire Brigade" or "Institutional Search and Rescue Squad" thing that I volunteered to do for well over a year. And just last month I applied for "Trainer Skills For Trainers" and got turned down.

But none of that really counts.

So now that it's coming down to the wire they have decided that we can go to some national corrections officers website and take some online courses to make up the deficit. We can do some of it at work as long as it doesn't interfere with our work. Or we can do it at home but we won't get any extra comp time for it.

What to do.... What to do... I can try to do it at work but the chances of being alone on a computer for an hour and not have to jump up and do something else in the middle are slim. Or I can sacrifice an hour here and there and lounge around in my PJ's at home and even play music or stop and watch a teevee show in the middle if I like.

I guess the choice is simple. And Model A gave me a good idea tonight. Rather than take two eight hour classes and send in two completion certificates, I think I'll take sixteen one hour classes and send each one in a different envelope just to be difficult.

If they want to take up my time, I'll just take up some of theirs. So there!

Friday (yay! Friday!) is going to be Waiting For The Barbarians Day. I won't have to wait long, I'm sure. It will also be Use Your Common Sense Day.

Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen.