Last week I had to attend a training on Bullying and Harassment in the workplace. I didn’t feel it was the best of use of my time but there are some very real bullying issues that go on in the organisation I work for so I was pleased they were doing it. It was however more of a waste of my time than I had thought it would be. In fact it was infuriating. The trainer was bad and disorganised (as a trainer I especially hate that) and kept using examples that were so far fetched and unrelated that no one really got thinking about the complexity of bullying and the power realtions in the building. Not to mention all the reall issues got glazed over and everyone went home feeling like they weren’t a bully. Even the lady who seemed to think rascist jokes boost morale. And the man who this morning when I requested some help with my computer stormed in as if it wasn’t his job,even though he is the IT support person, sighed loudly, rolled his eyes when I didn’t know the answers and to some questions and stormed out again. All because his is busy. The universal excuse it seems for rudeness and incompetence in the world even though I don’t know anyone who isn’t busy.