Shut the Fuck Up

I'm in training. Training to write code. The first question they asked us was what our expectations were for the class. So I said I expected to be reduced to tears at least twice. Half the class are members of a team that already use ColdFusion and just need to learn the ins and outs of the latest version. Another three are developers and then there is me: a graphic designer who was taken by the sucking black hole that is the world wide web.

One of my fellow trainees has decided to hijack the class. She is needy and demanding. And whiny. And she has a stoopid name: Tonda. Yesterday the instructor offered to skip the lab modules and cover more information at the end of the three day class. Since half the class already knows the program and since the optional material is the most valuable to the rest of us we all went YIPEE!

At 11:30 as we were rolling into the next module, Tonda announced that it was lunch time. "This is a big retail area and it's a very busy retail season so if you want us to be back in one hour, you need to let us out now." So our teacher let us out. When we came back, Tonda demanded that we take another vote about the class format because she wanted to do the labs. "I could be getting the same knowledge from a $50 book in front of my laptop at home."

Yeah? Then do us all a favor and go home with the book. There was much eye rolling and hemming and hawing as nobody ever wants to confront a bully. But we all know how charming I am and how much I love a fight, so I finally said, "Look, you're being selfish. The rest of us need the information from the end of the class. You want to do the labs, do them at home."

So we hit a compromise: if she wanted to do the labs with the instructor at the end of the day, he'd stay with her and the rest of us could attempt to beat rush hour traffic. That led to the rest of the day's acting out activities: constant questions, interuptions, and demands that the instructor not click his freaking mouse so fast. I was ready to bitch slap her into the next class room.

Today she's sucking up and trying to take the instructor to lunch so she can have some private face time. He keeps dodging the bullet, but we'll see how it plays out.