terribleturnip

Okay, I've got a training class in a half an hour and it's just now dawning on me that it's three and a half freaking hours long. Augh. #1. I can't sit that long. Never mind pay attention. #2. They still think it's effective to have two people share a computer when learning software. (It's not.) So I have to choose between being the one to be at the keyboard, which increases my chances of learning something from muscle memory, but increases my anxiety about someone sitting next to me watching me expletive up. Or, do the reverse, which takes a lot of pressure off of me socially, but increases the likelihood that I will have to take this class again, because it's so much harder to learn when someone else is just showing you. And here's the worse thing - I have ANOTHER four hour training class on something completely different tomorrow. I'm afraid I might develop a brain tumor just to get out of it.

Here's the thing -- I really, really enjoy learning new things. But not so much in public. And within my time-frame capability - which is around an hour, at most two. And at my own pace, which is about twice as fast as average for most things, but about half-speed when learning things like...pivot tables. ::shudder:: I know it's not hard -- but when you have a mental block and keep being taught by people for whom it's second nature...

What I need to do is get a book, scuttle off on my own, and learn it. But so far I've been able to make that case here at work, and there are a mandatory number of hours of training we need to put in, which I support intellectually but hate and fear emotionally, like a feral cat being dragged into the vet's office. I think that not knowing how to do something is almost embarassing to me, so I want to catch up in private. I don't want anyone to see me making mistakes. Just emerge, ta-da, fully skilled and competent.

Plus there's my notorious lack of patience with other people. Some things are easy for me, really easy. And while I can be extraordinarily patient when I'm teaching people, I'm the worst classmate in the world if you read a little bit more slowly than I do. If the teacher has a powerpoint deck that basically repeats whatever he or she is saying. If someone asks a question that seems obvious to me. I was put in the special classes to keep everyone else safe from my withering sighs and eyerolls, not for my own benefit, I believe. I can be a real expletive as a fellow student.

And when it comes to learning software skills -- there are going to be some places this afternoon where I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and I'll be all "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, c'mon, I got expletive to do back at my desk" and there will be places where I go into full panic "wait, what, how did we get here, aw, god, I'm so many steps behind I'll never catch up" and then the TA will get me to where I'm supposed to be, but I won't understand how we got there, so it all becomes pointless and it's just like algebra again, which I had to take for three years and then remedial in college because when I develop a brain block about understanding something, it is proof against zombies AND nuclear devastation.

Which is why I am taking this Excel class again. So that I can be bored through all the filter/sort/search/formula stuff...and get left in the dust on pivot tables. Expletive. It's algebra all over again, isn't it? Only this time with restless leg syndrome, hot flashes and an adult short attention span. Awesome.