Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Wasting Precious Time


What a day. This morning, from 9-12, I had to attend a workshop on "Violence in the Workplace". It isn't that I don't see the value of these workshops, because I really do. We need to be reminded of the most effective methods for defusing angry taxpayers and that it is okay to walk away from a situation that feels bad to you. I was also reminded of the Secret Service hand position. Do you know this? It looks like this ↓ and is supposed to indicate relaxed readiness. This year, there was a brand new little film included which was all about how to best survive if an active shooter enters the building. Seriously. It was supposed to be empowering and help to educate us on a real life skill. Mostly, it was just kind of scary. Who wants to envision that scenario? Again, useful stuff, yet there is never a good time for these things. So I have to grumble a bit each time one of these workshops comes up, and.......done!

Anyway, I am sort of calling this day a loss :-) Because I am a slacker like that. I mean, I do still have a couple hours of public desk time to contend with, but aside from that I have devoted my time to making up a little flyer for Handsome Lad's upcoming birthday party. And that, friends, is my Tuesday!

9 comments:

MrManuel said...

Sounds like a fun class to me. The video of how to survive a shooting sounds like a blast!

Anonymous said...

I used to love filmstrips in school and I still love them now. I just recently got to watch a really cheesy sexual harassment video. The characters were tremendous and the acting was on the porn level...it was great.

Tara said...

I'm actually surprised they haven't shown us that video yet. We're a school with some disgruntled students enrolled, and although I hate to picture that scenario too, I wonder how we'd be able to handle something like that.

We've had sexual harassment videos and also videos on drinking in the workplace and the warning signs.

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

I remember watching cheesy films in school.. we would always fall asleep... I do like the safety videos.. they can be kinda funny..but yes scary too....

laura b. said...

MrManuel: haha! I can't deny that there was blasting involved...

Evil-E: See, I think that was the problem with this particular video. The production values were much too high.

Tara: I can now tell you what your best chances for survival are! If it comes down to it, don't go down like a sheep, throw things at him/her and get your pals together to rush and tackle the shooter! Ideally, though, you are able to hide well enough that you aren't spotted. There. Do you feel safer? haha!

MrsBHW: This film needed to be much more cheesy. It might win an award or something... ;-)

Churlita said...

I'm surprised they don't do that at my university job. In 1991 we had a guy shoot a bunch of people at our school. They're supposedly making a movie about it with Meryl Streep. Any time a student gets disgruntled, they always threaten us by bring up that shooter guy's name.

minijonb said...

i would have worn a "I'm going postal" t-shirt to that meeting.

laura b. said...

Churlita: It seems that people love to threaten employees in public service sorts of jobs. That must be pretty creepy when disgruntled students name check someone like that.

MiniJonB: I am never clever enough to plan ahead like that :-)

AlienCG said...

It's always easy to tell you what to do if an active shooter enter the building, but I'm sure reality is a little different.