Yesterday I had to attend a management seminar of sorts. I’ve been to loads of these things over the past 20 years and they no longer hold my interest and I try to avoid them wherever possible. Unfortunately this one was compulsory so there was no escape.
The speaker, an affable fellow who had once played professional football for the Denver Broncos, adopted the manner of a motivational speaker. Sadly he quickly lapsed into 1980s management-speak. First he talked about “mind mapping” which is a bollocky way to describe planning a project. Then he’d said "you've got to be proactive instead of reactive” and by the time he uttered that hatefully meaningless phrase “think out of the box" on a least three occasions I was ready to strangle the bugger in front of the whole class. Fortunately he didn’t mention “paradigm shifts” or anything that was “mission critical” as these tired clichés would have ensured his immediate demise. Perhaps one reason he survived impaling and spit roasting (OK, OK, I’m exaggerating just a bit) was the surreal amusement from I obtained from two of my classmates’ names. Thus attending with me were "Earl Grey" and "Ravi Shankar". Seriously! It made me want to change my name to Brian Damage, Rheumatoid Arthritis or even Bigus Dickus. This can only happen in the USA!
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