Electrical Testing Course Was Certainly Testing

02 December 2010

I can't believe it is December already. It really makes me wonder where the year has gone. It only seems like a few weeks ago that I was complaining it was too hot and now the snow has really set in and it looks like it is going to be a long winter.

Still at least when the weather is rotten you don't mind being stuck indoors having to work. That is unless you have to get up at 5am to trek half way across the country to attend a stupid training course....

This week as part of my electricians accreditation, I had to do a compulsory training day and exam. Every year or two they tell you that in order to keep using the approved tradesman logo you need to have shown that you have completed this or that training course. This one was about electrical testing and “testing”, it certainly was.

For a start I had to get up well before dawn and drive for two and a half hours to get there for nine. Thankfully the snow hadn't really set in or my £180 might have been wasted. As you can imagine I wasn't best pleased at having to pay that! Got there only to realise that I had forgotten a very important certificate. The funny thing is that the place I was having the course were the very same people who issued me with the certificate. But did they have a copy on site? Oh no...that was too much bother as it was a “different department”.

So the wife had to email a copy from home. Fine, that was sorted. Then the course began and I was sat next to a jobsworth who couldn't keep quiet about how much he knew, what great electrical jobs he had done and how important he thought doing these courses was. He was the type you might have described as a teachers pet, if we were at school.

Anyway we spent several hours learning all the stuff we already knew and then had to sit a test which we had to pass 100%. I got a couple of questions wrong and was told which ones and asked to check them over and redo them. Fair enough for me, but what is the purpose of having a test if they show you exactly how to pass it?

So I got home late and fed up and felt like my day had been completely wasted. My opinion is that these courses are made up by the training departments to keep them in work. They issue booklets and pamphlets all through the year anyway with all of the new information and then they insist that you get trained on that information. But I read it, I understood it and I have been doing it for the last year. What exactly is the point? Aside from being a money making exercise, of course.

Even the buffet was rubbish....

On to happier things. The gazebo is coming along fine, in fact it is near enough finished and looks pretty good. I am still not convinced that our friends are going to want to sit in it, regardless of how warm I can make it. One gas fire is not going to be good enough, but if all else fails they can squeeze inside the house. They'll cope.

Next on the agenda is the downstairs toilet. At least that is an indoor job and is something I can do with my eyes shut. Shouldn't be any big problems with that, touch wood...