This time, I’m going on a course! What could possibly go wrong?

For two days last month, I attended a course.  In hindsight, this may have been a mistake after first scaling the AXA PPP insurance complaint mountain in the same week, which felt something akin to climbing Everest in terms of endurance.

Anyway, in the spirit of Lifelong Learning, off I went with my study guide and a willingness to engage with others. At first I thought I had the wrong room – everyone else seemed very, very young. They had all evidenced this by:

1. multi tasking on hand-held devices and;
2. wearing jeans. In the background, a Spotify playlist threw out musical delights that I was not au fait with.

Secondly, I had made the gauche error of not turning up with a Mac Book Pro on day one – probably because I was the oldest one there, apart from the tutor. Personally, I enjoy a nice seminar with a bacon roll at the beginning and some pastries that you can slip in your bag at the end. Sometimes you even get a certificate for nodding earnestly for an hour or two in the name of CPD and often there’s a cup of tea and a branded pen in it, too.

Education and learning are funny things, mixed as they often are with the gaining of both knowledge and disappointment. 21 years after receiving my A Level results, I still can’t bear to watch students opening the envelopes containing various letters of the alphabet on live TV* and then seeing the photos of excitable girls (who only ever seem to wear vests and shorts) jumping for joy outside their school building. *Last week, I told Twitter that I was starting a one-woman campaign to stop this awful practice, but as I only received two likes and one re-tweet for the post, I’ll leave it until next year.

I also have yet to have anyone in the real world ask me about my dissertation, the catchy title of which was: “The Juggling Fiend – Motifs of the Devil in the Plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe.” So there!

Anyway, back in the room. As with courses everywhere, we had to “go round the room” and introduce ourselves. I stated my job title and said what I did, which was re-interpreted as: “So, you’re in sales and marketing.”  Umm….not really. As professional services firms don’t really like the word “sales”, you never, ever use it.  You say Business Development, or “BD” if you’re in a hurry.

They always say that you never stop learning and I soon learned that nothing sets my nerves on edge like people all typing away in one room, like pixies doing Riverdance in teeny tiny tap shoes.

180 slides over 60 pages also stood between me, the acquisition of new knowledge and a G&T on Friday evening.  I had to focus, and I had to stay sane. I usually do this by obsessively taking notes in bullet point format and being the life and soul of the seminar room when asked a question, but that just wasn’t happening on this occasion.

After some time, I became obsessed with mastering marketing metrics, using imaginary sales platforms, pipelines and plug-ins.  I was certain that, if only I could get huge amounts of money spent on systems like Microsoft Dynamics, Sales Force or Interaction, everything else would be fine and I could just concentrate on remembering acronyms such as ROCE, ROI and PESTELE.

After all, what is life without understanding Porter’s Five Forces, or the 7 Ps? As the tutor said, “You don’t want to be thought of as the colouring in department.” I thought that was a bit unfair, because I’m sure that people think that we do a lot more in BD than that! As one of my friends said to me when I started out in Business Development, “You’re playing to your strengths Sarah – coffees and lunches!”

On day two, I got to the point (the small dog that I refer to as Anxiety was back), where I could not connect the learning from the morning with answering any questions. It was hopeless. I was hopeless. I was thick. However, lots of other questions crowded my thoughts, and very helpful they were, too. How could I think that I was good at anything at all? How did I get here? Why on earth was I studying for yet another qualification? What was the point of it all? Why weren’t there any custard creams?!

I thought of my past failures, not my successes, and I shut my laptop (I had lugged in my old Mac Book to try and look younger), went home, put on my pyjamas and cried for two hours, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Yes, it was late afternoon on a Friday – and I was snivelling under a cushion, wearing my slipper boots.

Happily, my wonderful work friends were not having any of this nonsense and I was asked, then ordered, to join them for drinks.  As I wallowed on my sofa, I was told to come for a drink, just the one, and so I did. I even got changed first – those slipper boots have got to last.

So, after all that, what did I learn? Two large gin and tonics (I’m nothing if not predictable), a burger and some much-needed laughter later, I was ready to face the weekend. You never know, I may yet master those metrics whilst juggling a phone, an ancient laptop and a mini pastry, after all. It’s true you never stop learning, but the lesson here is always listen to your friends when they offer you food, drink and laughter.