Yesterday was the training I had to give. Four hours of talking to forty people. First of all, I'm not much of a talker. Second of all, I don't like to be the center of attention. Combine these, and I wasn't sure how things would go. Another thing I kind of sort of worry about is that I look young. If I'm in jeans and a hoodie, I look about 16, or at least that's what I've been told by some very kind people. Of course I didn't wear jeans and a hoodie (although I should have because my clothes and shoes weren't all that comfortable), but I look young enough even when dressed up that I worry that people won't take me seriously in situations where they should.
Anyway, things turned out fine. Better than fine. There were a few problems, but it was more like room logistics. My class had filled up really fast, and then I went over capacity. I got moved to the library, which was fine, but I had been told that all classrooms had a computer and an overhead projector. Well...a library isn't a classroom, and nothing was already in the library. Fortunately, I had brought along my laptop and in focus (but I had been hoping just to insert the jump drive instead of lugging all the electronics from my car). The really bad part was that I had to move a lot of tables and these really heavy chairs (40!) around my laptop/in focus setup. The logistics worked; I just hadn't been hoping to lug around really heavy tables and chairs all by myself, set up the laptop, try to figure out the in focus, pass out packets and treats - all in the 45 minutes before the training started. And then put the room back together like I had found it after the training was over.
The training itself went really well. It helped that since I laid out the table setup, I laid it out how I preferred - which is everyone facing the overhead and I'm in the middle/back of the room. Basically I'm just a voice instead of in front of everyone performing because that makes me nervous. I wasn't nervous at all, which was awesome because my manager sat in on my training for an hour.
The participants were great. There was 1 oddball, but I find that there's always at least one oddball. In a group of 20, you usually get one or two oddballs. So I was pleased to find in the group of 40, there was only 1 oddball. The rest of the participants grew to dislike her quickly.
Typically it seems like you lose people as time goes on. What was weird about this training is that people started sneaking in. By the end of the training, I had about 5 more people than I had started with.
People seemed to like it. I got numerous of positive comments, they all clapped at the end, I tried to throw in a few jokes...who knows what the evaluations will say but I at least felt like I was on the ball - even with my manager dropping in.
Work is still busy; I have tons to do. But at least with the presentation last week and the Saturday presentation out of the way, I feel like I can better concentrate on my other work now.
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