The Avanta Files

I don’t think today will be a interesting post, because it was all about CVs and the work booklet to go with it. Though, I guess there is something interesting in there.

Started out normal enough, go in, start on the new CV work booklet and just like yesterday, the tutor had us do each page as a group, and about a hour in, we where allowed a short, 5 minute, brake (in addition to our 15 minute brake later on). This is sort of where I ‘snapped’.

Well, I say snapped, its not really snapped in the traditional sense, I just decided that I was going to have a word with the tutor about the course and the fact its going far to slow. So, I had a word with the tutor.

I told him I thought it was going far to slow and that I had done all this back in November, different booklets admittedly, but we all know there all the same. It was a good chat, and I think he was glad I brought it up with him, instead of sitting there and looking like my miscible self. So, from then, I was allowed to work at my own pace.

Coming up to lunch time, I had basically finished the booklet, but as part of the course requirement (a part that even the tutor thinks is a long way around), you needed to have a digital copy of your CV, not something I had on me at the time, so I was allowed to disappear to lunch 20mins early to sort out a digital copy.

Coming back from lunch, we all piled onto the computers, a chance to update our CVs – Now, I was thinking of leaving mine how it was, but looking through some of the extra material they gave us, I got inspired to write something alot better in my personal profile, I also added a little more detail to some jobs and training I had done. That only took about a hour to do, between when I had finished the book and my CV, I was helping a couple of other people with there problems, mostly office 2003 adding an extra line brake after pressing enter, but that dried out a little after about 30mins, so I was sat playing Spider Solitaire. The tutor saw I was sat there board, so let me disappear home early, not complaining about that.

All things considered, today was much better than yesterday, back next Monday at 9:30am, not exactly sure what we are doing, but the tutor will be having one-to-one sessions with some people who need a little extra help.

I couldn’t think of a funny title, or a pun for this post, not a good start really, shows how much bull shit this course really it.

It started out as any other employability course, the tutors introduce themselves, tell you ‘Its not a classroom situation’ type thing (I’ll be coming back to that), info about brakes and lunch times and a little about the course. Turns out, you get a nice certificate at the end of this… Wow, a certificate in looking for work, people will be queuing around the corner for that one… *facepalms*

Exercises 1 – The ‘Ice Breaker’
ALL these courses starts with something like this, there all different, this one was new to me, but still a crock of shit. First we folded paper, so we had 8 boxes, then we wrote a question in each of them, I’ll try my best to get them all, and in the right order, but its not easy.
1) How do you feel today
2) What is your favourite thing to do
3) What would be your ideal job
4) What is your dream (or something like that)
5) What do you hate
6) What is your favourite TV Show
7) Who would you like to meet, who is famous
8 ) -Can’t Remember-

Then we went around the room, asking everyone there answers, here are mine
1) Like Death, 2) Play Video Games, 3) Video Game Designer/Producer, 4) Have my own business, 5) “Courses like this” , 6) The X Files/The Lone Gunmen and Top Gear, 7) Richard Branson/Bill Gates, 8 ) -Can’t Remember-

Alot of the other people had football related stuff and there answer to 7, wanting to meet footballers – But I wont dwell on that idiocy.

Exercise 2 – Employment Booklet
Now, I’ll give the tutors there due, they came out and said this booklet isn’t exactly helpful, but the exam board say it must be completed for you to finish this course.
It was full of questions about the local job market, basically coming down to – Choose a job that’s relevant to you (Data Input/Business Admin), Choose an employer in your local area that uses that type of person (just about everyone needs IT people), what sector they are in and what they provide, and that was just a couple of the pages. It basically came down to – This is what you want to do, this is somewhere to apply for that job, this is what they do. And remember when I said I would come back to the ‘Its not a classroom situation’, well, the tutor who was leading, made us do each question together, we couldn’t skip ahead and we where told to put our pens down when we had finished each question… Yeah, that’s not like a classroom is it…
Basically, it sucked, and even the tutors know it.

Exercise 3 – Bit of CV Work (Starting for tomorrow)
After lunch, we where split into 3 groups of 3 for another exercise, we where given 5 REAL CV’s (the personal information was changed) and told to work in our groups to pick out the best points and worst points of each CV and then asked to give each a mark out of 10 to whether we would employ them or not. I ended up working alone.
Some of these CVs where terrible, there was so many things wrong with them, there where ones with criminal convictions on them (1x Growing Cannabis, 1x Assault), one with a massive gap in unemployment (1990-2011), most of them had some of the worst formatting ever and some of them had “Curriculum Vitae” at the top, and one of them was massive, covers close to a quarter of the page – What I am trying to say it, only 2 of the 5 where worth anything.
I’ll sort of give them this one, pointing out the bad stuff could help with your CV, but if you are anything like me, your protective over your CV and although I take criticism on-board, I like to stand out. There will be more on CVs tomorrow.

So, that was Day 1 on this course and it SUCKED! I hope it gets better, I really do, because I can’t do 9.30-4.00 on this bullshit, I very much doubt I will get anything useful out of it, it is, at the end of the day, a waste of time.

P.S. Follow the #BoardBeaver tag on Twitter, will try and tweet as much as possible during the course.

I can sum this one up in 4 words – Course Full, Sent Home. But that’s not why your here.

It was the 2nd attempt at starting the e-achieve course, and there second fail, I never even got into the room, the tutor was coming down the stairs as I was going up. He apologised profusely about it being full and offered me a Wednesday, I said no, I have plans, but he is going to phone the Avanta manager about it… Yeah, I think not….

There comes a point with all this where you have to make a stand, this blog is one of them, but I made another, I told the tutor that this is ‘Screw Up Number 2′ and they have 1 more chance, now, a phone call telling me a day is cancelled is fair enough, there giving notice, but if its anything like the first time, then that’s screw up number 3, and I’m out of there. How can you run something like this and not be professional about it?

So, I’m waiting for a call from them tonight to tell me when the next course is starting. Think they will call? Think the same thing will happen again? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Oh, and they do have computers.

So, I remembered the name of that place, well, I did on Monday when I got a letter confirming the date, time and place, but that’s neither here nor there.

Because it was cancelled! The tutor phoned in sick, they tried to contact us all and tell us, but I guess they didn’t try hard enough as my mobile is always switched on and I always have it with me, brilliant start.

One thing that did get me though, is there are no computers, not 1…. How can you do an IT course without a computer? How can you gage IT experience without a computer? Baffling really.

So yeah, no e-achieve course today, start on Tuesday 31st now, same time, same place… I look forward to it </sarcasm>