Murphy's Lawish

Right now I'm so angry, and still it's just a fraction of how mad I was yesterday, when I felt *this* close to an apoplectic fit. Yesterday I was "alone" with my anger, today I've at least had the time to ventilate the whole ridiculous, unacceptable issue with some of the other course participants in the same situation.

Remember the discontentment list of course, well, as of yesterday it grew. With what can definitely be considered to be the last straw. I really very much need to let off steam in writing too. This is going to be dull. A whole lot of dull. But here goes. Tomorrow I just might be a nicer me again. First a bit of background;

This course consists of 30 weeks in total, out of which we have five weeks - well initially it was said to be four... - of traineeship beginning in May, and then the last seven weeks - which was said to be six... - of the course.

Week 8: Before we were interviewed for the course it was clearly said that we should make a list of the companies we would like to do that traineeship in. Not a single question about it came up during the interview.

Week 10: At the introduction we were very adamantly told that noone should contact any would be traineeship company, because if the whole thing wasn't collectively organized it would reflect badly on the course and the organizers. It would all seem very unprofessional *ahem*. We would get more information the following week.

Week 11: After nearly two weeks we hadn't gotten any information - time flies and it seems, to say the least, very unprofessional not to contact the presumptive companies well ahead of the first period of traineeship...

The last but one day of that two week course-section we got information that the traineeship information would be handed out to all of us after this section was finished.

Week 12-13: ... went by. Week 21 - 25 is steadily approaching - or is it week 22-25? - then we got the information that next week, when the class is divided into two groups the Organizer Guy will have a one-to-one talk with each and everyone of us about the traineeship. Oh, and information sheets too.

Week 14: Nothing happens until Thursday, when we get a couple of lame sheets of information. These information sheets incidentally made us look like half-wits. *Horay, this is just how I want to be perceived by presumptive intern companies* Not a word about those one-to-one-talks. But please hand in your interesting-companies-list to the Organizer Guy on April 8 at the latest.

Week 15: I email my long beforehand made list to the Organizer Guy on the 7th. On the 11th - at the latest - we'll get feedback and hopefully green light on the companies we have on our list. If there are any selections that collide, the Organizer Guy will dispense them fairly - and by fairly we thought someone's first choice comes before another one's fifth choice and so on.

On the 9th there's information at the organizer-site that those of us who haven't turned in our lists should immediately do so. Annoying that people can't respect deadlines, gnarl.

Around lunch on the 11th I email the Organizer Guy and wonder what has happened with the list. I get a speedy reply that he won't be able to finish the task that day, but he'll work with it during the weekend so we'll have the list by Monday. At the latest. Sigh.

Late yesterday afternoon there's a group email stating that the Organizer Guy, due to a server crash hasn't received any company-lists from me (!) and another woman and that he in vain has tried to contact us all weekend about this. The last statement is a blatant lie, my mobile works and so does my regular phone. No message has been left on neither answering machine and the number presenter is blank. My email obviously works fine.

He must have known very well which ones hadn't handed in the lists during the week. He could have contacted us earlier. But the thing that really really REALLY bugs me - besides the blatant lying part - is that he didn't say a single word about not having received my list when we emailed on the 11th.

He urged us to get in touch and at the same time he thought it was a brilliant idea to publish the lists with the companies chosen by the others, if something collided with our requests he *might* modify them. At first glance I thought ok, I've obviously chosen wisely, that my seventh placed company collided with someone else's wish wasn't a big deal. But when I looked a little closer my first choice was on the fifth place of someone else's list. That's simply not all right. At all.

In vain I've tried to contact the Organizer Guy about this. And so have the other course participants - yes plural, turned out there were five of us and not "only" two... - with the same problem. It's just not acceptable that my first hand choice most likely will be excluded from my list only because of him not doing his job. If I'm going to do this internship I'm also going to at least have the opportunity to contact companies I'm interested in, companies where I think me being a trainee will be of mutual benefit for both me and company.

If I don't get an acceptable answer from the Organizer Guy I will just go ahead and contact them tomorrow anyway. It doesn't necessarily means I'm lucky enough to get a positive answer - fingers crossed and touch wood! - but at least I have a chance to present myself.

And if I'm not the first one to call and it gives a poorly impression of the education and organizer, so be it. Since it alas very much reflects reality. And just having to call these companies and praise this very non-amazing and equally non-professional course gives me the big blah... But the teachers so far has been good to very good at least. Will have to make it revolve around that. And my own skills and qualities. Will have to try and make it short and sweet, somehow.

Of course writing this long, and most probably dull for anyone but myself - and I just don't care, today I write solely for therapeutically reasons - , post has calmed me down. But the principle of it and the behaviour still very much galls me. Growl big time.

And the Murphy's Lawish in this? Well, yesterday was just a day of almost every little detail going wrong - right up until the lovely concert we attended in the evening. But that event deserves a post of its own. No sharing with this crappy coursey thing.