Professional Development (Part I)

Tim once mused that Bob is so terrible at his job because he just doesn’t care enough about it. I thought that was a very gentle thing to say. But, as it turned out, it was also quiet incorrect. Even when Bob really cares about the task at hand, he still can’t do it properly.

Bob received a memo from the uber-boss, instructing him to send everyone to a professional development class. Sadly, the specifics of this rather useful initiative were left to Bob’s discretion.

Of course, a meeting was scheduled to discuss the task at hand. And, of course, it was rescheduled, because Bob’s cat needed to be taken to the vet. It was rescheduled a second time, because Bob’s cat kept puking up the prescribed antibiotics, and needed to be taken to the vet again. (At least, there was continuity between these two excuses, so we had some reason to believe that the cat did in fact exist, and that it did, in fact, feel quite ill).

Eventually, the cat, undergoing a course of the latest in feline pharmaceuticals, began to feel better, and our meeting finally took place.

Bob, in his superb management style, explained the value of professional development as follows: “I was told that you all need to take a class or something.”

We got excited. Bob napped with his eyes open while we talked about the different conferences we’d like to attend, and the skills we’d like to acquire or refine. Then, he woke up, and informed us that he already decided what sort of professional development we’d be getting, and that we don’t really have to concern ourselves fantasizing about conferences and such. He said that as if it were a good thing. Then he read the list.

I was signed up for “Project Management for Systems Administrators,” and Nick was signed up for “Systems Administration for Project Managers.” But it got worse. Marek, who was a Certified Systems Administrator on multiple platforms was to attend a week long “Unix for Beginners” class, and Tim, who looked so hopeful when Bob mentioned a design conference in California, was distraught when he heard that he would be attending a Photoshop Basics course in Newark, New Jersey. Ben and Dave, both PHP and Perl experts, were given a choice between a week-long Java course or a week-long C++ course. That’s pretty much equivalent to being given the choice between stabbing yourself in the eye with a ball point pen or a pair of scissors.

And while we were all too absorbed with that miserable state of affairs, Bob took advantage of our momentary lack of attention to mention that he would be fulfilling his own professional development requirement with a semester long beginners Russian class from BPU’s Slavic Languages department. It took only a few moments to register.

“What do you mean, Russian,” Nick asked. Lately, he’s been the first one to question Bob’s frequent idiocy.
“I want to learn Russian, it’s a beautiful language.”
“So what,” Nick persisted, “it has nothing to do with your job. If you take Russian, I want to take French.”
“You can’t. I already told you what you are taking.”
“Well I don’t care. If you are taking a class that has nothing to do with your job, so am I!”

A chorus of “yeah’s” erupted from the rest of the staff, and I decided that it wouldn’t be prudent to mention that we were also taking classes that had nothing to do with our job.

But then, Bob explained that there wasn’t enough money in the budget for him to take a course off-campus, and so he had to take advantage of BPU’s tuition exemption program for employees, and sign up for something from the general catalog. Of course, that was a lousy excuse. The general catalog offered plenty of computer science, information technology, and business administration courses, all of which were a lot more relevant to his job than beginners Russian. So we argued back and forth, until Bob finally broke down and confessed to his true motives.

“Next month I’m going on vacation to the Ukraine, and I want to learn Russian,” he told us with a tentative smile.

Nick began to question the ethical ramifications of Bob’s decision, but quickly gave up. So, while we had to suffer through painfully boring and completely irrelevant classes, Bob got to spend two hours, three times per week, in the company of attractive undergrads and an interesting instructor, preparing for his upcoming vacation.

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