Training hell

Yesterday and today, I am taking mandatory training for Homeland Security.  (Kill me now!)

 

The basic gist of this excercise in soul-sucking is to prepare us for how to plan things and set particular items into motion should we ever be tasked to react to a particular type of disaster.  (Again, KILL me now!)

 

Our training is led by three people.  For the purposes of this replay, I will simply name them, the Nebish, the Mouse, and Kronk.

 

The Nebish, a regular trainer, is a very non-threatening type.  Very bland… very monotone… and a bit insipid.  See stereotypical male librarian or Unibomber.  

 

The Mouse is a very petite gal whose task in the training seems to be absolutely nothing other than reading what is on the slides of the Powerpoint presentation.  She is so quiet, the students in the class have frequently asked her to speak up, only for her to speak at the same level.  ACK!

 

Then, there is Kronk.  Kronk reminds me of Patrick Wallburton, but nowhere near as handsomely hot.  He DOES have the voice and the attitude that commands our attention.  Why?  Kronk is a cop who is called to duty on upper-level items such as presidential motorcades, etc.  Speaking of which, the back row (which is of course where I sit), took advantage of the term "motorcade," incorporating that into our FEMA drinking game.  Sadly, we only had coffee to drink, but it did provide for at least SOME entertainment - the only entertainment, actually.

 

As if trainings don’t already make my skin crawl, our instructors have been arranging us into groups for “group exercises.”  To be as direct as I know – I HATE TRAINING GROUP EXERCISES WITH A PASSION!!!  In the grand scheme of things, Group Exercises to me are worse than spending the day with a classroom of 2^nd graders, having a root canal, or finding myself at a family reunion without any alcohol.  I usually just shut down because otherwise, I may say something that gets me written up. 

 

Our Group exercises have involved creating various case scenarios for filling out paperwork for particular disaster scenarios.  But even the disaster scenarios crack me up.  They frankly sound like one of those disaster movies from the ‘70’s.  It isn’t enough to have a traffic accident.  It isn’t enough to be just outside of a major themepark.  It isn’t enough to close down the only major highway.  But it has to involve fully loaded school buses with lots of kids, an overturned tanker, an approaching storm, AND leaking liquid sulfur.

 

And then there is the one involving the train derailment where the train cars that overturn contain newsprint, molten sulfur (Recurring theme????), phosphorous, and tallow.  (We still USE tallow?)

 

I read those, and just had to crack up.  After all… what if in the process of overturning, the trains knocked a tree down into a powerline, lighting the forest on fire?  Add on that several nests of killer bees may have shaken loose from the trees.  And are there any wild wombats in the area?  Can we EVER be too careful?

 

I don’t think I’m the best choice of Incident Commander for major disasters.