Training Day

  Madrid, Spain
Monday, March 26, 2007

When the movie Training Day came out in October 2001, the tag line was "The only thing more dangerous than the line being crossed, is the cop who will cross it."

Well, there's nothing that dangerous going on here, but you never know who's going to cross the line. Not sure what line - we'll figure it out when we get to it, and cross it. Oh, have no doubt, we'll cross a line somewhere... As long as it's not the highway.

View from our training room

Training Day 1 saw a total of 15 - no, 14, no, 16, no, 17... no, back to 14 - trainees walk into our classroom. We knew 3 of them from December in Toronto, and the rest were new, representing Italy, Spain and Portugal. Everyone introduced themselves one by one, but you try remembering 15 new names, in 3 different languages, without seeing them in writing...! Only one solution to that: pass a sheet around the room, ask for people's names and email addresses, and hope the sheet gets filled out in the order people are sitting to get a little seating chart. Aren't I clever?

The training room

The day went by fast -- yes, hard to believe. The material is complex and dense, the English skills of the trainees vary widely, from fairly fluent (2 or 3), to barely conversational (the majority), and it's only the first of seven full days of training. Do I hear the word "Challenge!"? Yep!

Things went pretty well - no major glitch, one minor one (quickly fixed), and before we knew it, it was 1.30pm, lunch time. Actually, early lunch for Spain.

The four Canadians ended up having lunch by ourselves, as some of our trainees waved to us in the cafeteria, but chose to sit with their fellow countrypeople. Understandable, for all kinds of reasons: language, familiarity, "trainers vs. trainees barrier" (weird but true), and perhaps the key reason - it's just hard to break the ice in a big group with all kinds of cultures and languages.

No worries - it will surely come...

Training wrapped up at 6pm - 1 hour later than planned. The Canucks stayed behind, and worked til 9:15pm, prepping and reviewing for subsequent days of training.

Our friend Augustin the security guard came by, and very nicely told us we had to get out by 9:30, as he needed to lock the doors. Ah yes, there's nothing like being the last people to leave the client site, after all the clients have gone home for the day. Not the first time I've done it, and not the last time either.

The 'hood near the training center

It was dark when we left, and we were tired, and we were hungry. We dragged our butts to the subway, rode back to our station, and decided to try the pub across the street from our hotel.

It was too full -- of people, and of smoke -- so we decided to try our luck somewhere else. Which brought us to "Pele Mele" -- a TGIF-like franchise restaurant with a wide menu. The food didn't quite live up to the menu's promise though. But it was caloric intake.

Went back to the hotel -- 11:30pm -- went to bed. Tried to sleep...