Training is a load of bollocks

Another day of election campaigning, and I get stuck listening to Kevin for 1 minute. He was dribbling on about the need for spending a small fortune on training schemes.

Training programs. Pfft. What a load of unmitigated flim-flam.

I have worked with a lot of people. Some good. Some excellent. Some truly atrocious. Some of the worst of the lot have been on more training courses than I've had drunken nights out on the town. If someone is a complete waste of space, all the training in the world will do nothing to make them a better worker. If anything, it can make the situation worse, as all you are doing is creating a know-it-all moron. Much better to have a moron that knows very little - they are less dangerous that way. A moron with a head full of ideas is just a recipe for disaster - they're constantly suggesting the stupidest things you've ever heard, and then getting all petulant when you tell them to go knob themselves.

Face it. There are only so many people in the world with innate talents in certain areas. All the training in the world is not going to make me a great football player. In any code. The same goes for work skills. Some people are very good at their jobs - not because they have been through lots of training courses, but because they have that certain special something inside them that makes them great. Sending them on a training course is very worthwhile - it builds on their existing talents and can make someone who is good, but has potential, into someone who is great.

But face it, we are talking about 10-20% of the entire population here. There is another 50% of the population that are just scraping by. They need just enough training to keep them productive. Those at the bottom of the heap are essentially not worth worrying about, and no amount of training is going to turn them into the high tech work force of the future.

The money would be better spent keeping the useless in beer and cigarettes and not letting them get in the way of those that are actually capable of doing a full days work.