Well, that was amusing. I was sitting peacefully in this week's training
class, which is stuff I need to know so I can both use it and teach it, when my
hitherto virgin pager buzzed. Apparently, the same woman who was teaching my class
was also somehow scheduled to teach another class at the same time. Unfortunately,
this was the initial overview class, which I have somehow managed never to attend,
and I haven't yet studied all the tools briefly covered in the overview. The only
other person around has been in this group longer than I have, but has also never
taught this module and is a hardware person to boot. He had already started with
the class, working from hard-copy handouts because he didn't have the appropriate
slides, either. I took over the class while he went off to download the slides.
I'd hoped he could stay around for support, but he had to run off to another
meeting.
The class went a bit better than I had expected, meaning it
was not a total disaster. Nobody actually fell asleep. They weren't hostile,
possibly out of pity -- we'd explained we were teaching this for the first time
and gave them an option to come to a later class. They asked a few questions I
couldn't answer as well as I'd have liked, and I couldn't provide concrete
examples of successful use of these tools and methods. I was able, though, to
provide web sites where they could find both more info and some examples, so I
wasn't totally useless. Maybe next time I have to teach I'll at least be able to
read the materials first.
Or maybe I should download all the
materials for all the modules to my laptop and reach it on the beach in San Diego
this weekend while Rudder races.