draining week

was in indonesia to conduct a program for my indonesian office over the week.

bloody draining. and as per all things indonesians, i start early, rush rush rush and then wait… and the participants will take their time to arrive, and even then, they will dilly dally… all things will be well once the program starts. and after an hour or so, they will ask for tea break. and once the break starts, they will disappear. and despite it being only a 15min tea break, by the time the next lesson starts, it would be 45min later. well, that is the culture. you cannot change it regardless of how hard you try. on my part, i have learned from my previous experience. to conduct training in indonesia, despite keeping to your learning outcomes, you over-plan, yet use the minimal (about 30-40% of the materials) and leave a lot of time free to cater to contingencies, such as participant's disappearance. not very productive, but that is the way things are. one cannot expect too much.

anyway, i was there for 2 days. i had to conduct different programs for both days and with different participants. and i have reminded the co-ordinator time and again to remind all participants to be present. and despite all the reminders and promises… on the first day, i was told to expect 25 pax. 17 turned up in the end. hmmm, not too bad i guess. on the second day, it was more challenging. the activities had to be preplanned and i had to organize the class into groups, each group based on very specific individual profiles. and i had expected 28 pax. the day before, the co-ordinator told me 22 pax would be there. and so, i had to change all the groupings the day before. on that day itself, 16 turned up, and i had to scramble and change the groupings. and by the time the lesson began, only 12 pax were present. arghhhh… 

by the time the day ended, i was totally drained. and before i left, the co-ordinator asked me to return for another round of training in dec. and again in jan… haiz!

i am just happy the week had ended.