Hello people

[trishpiglet]

Someone's Facebook post reminded me that DreamWidth was a thing and I thought 'yeah I miss seeing people's longer posts' also miss some of the people I don't Facebook with or who just don't Facebook. So HELLO here. No need to say hello back, I'll come find you x

Comments

[trishpiglet]

Muchly so.

One concern I have, ahead of their oral exam on Wednesday, is that perhaps there has been too little take-up of opportunity to ask questions. If we were all in a room together, more questions would be asked - being in a meeting on a screen rather than in person seems to bring about a level of passivity on some of the trainees. I wondered if it was because I said it was OK to not have your cameras on, but at the last Zoom meeting the non-camera people were more vocal and interactive than some of the camera-on people, a few of whom it was like looking at a test card sat there. They have a group WhatsApp, regular emails, smaller groups to work in on stuff, and a weekly catch-up phone call with me but I think ... you know what I think? I've maybe not been toppy enough. Or that's silly and I need to work to overcome the problem another way. Make the Zoom meetings longer and include time at the start to have a recap of how everyone's getting on with the work.

My boss informs me the company wants to standardise the training across all our services (I only do the London areas) and, when I complained 'what if I don't like someone else's training resources? or methods?' he came back with telling me the training model would be based on what I was doing and why did I think anything otherwise? etc.
...
No pressure then but what if it's shit?

Hello and guess who can't stop thinking about work even though it's the weekend! x

[nou]

You’re obviously very good at your job, but yes, you deserve your weekend off :)

Re the questions issue, might it work to offer people the option of putting questions in the chat channel instead of saying them out loud? I think there can be more of a barrier to vocally speaking up in a group Zoom call than in a face-to-face group meeting, since it’s harder to sort out conversational turn-taking and harder to understand when more than one person is talking at once. With the option of typing instead of speaking, there’s less of a feeling of interrupting.

[trishpiglet]

Good idea for next time. Thank you! I expected more interaction in the WhatsApp group and them being more vocal in their catch up calls and Zoom meetings but then I also have to remember back to the face-to-face training with the room of introverted pharmacists; that lot hardly said a word but then they did fine in their assessment.
For this time around, I'll make sure I give every opportunity for them to ask questions before Wednesday morning - also before the assessment starts I'll take questions for a few minutes and ask people how they've found the course.

I like the typing rather than being vocal option - also, if they ask just me rather than the whole group (I think you can filter chat to talk to specific people in Zoom) then they can feel they're asking their questions anonymously!

...
I miss you now. I think I've remembered just how much you are one of the world's loveliest humans

[nou]

Aw, Trish, you’re lovely too <3