I went on a seminar that did the opposite of what it was for and now I feel rubbish

[Careerhelp]

I did one of these little online seminars that was called Improve Your Confidence While Job Hunting or something. I ended up feeling even less confident than ever. We were told to do things like listing your achievements so everyone except me came up with things. I don't think I've achieved anything recently. Then we were all told to do some exercise and that Couch to 5K would change our lives. I have my own personal reasons for not wanting to go running.

I'm not interested in personal development advice here, I'm just annoyed that I wasted a few hours on this seminar.

Please cheer me up with tales of courses that left you none the wiser or did the opposite of what was supposed to happen.

A friend of mine once said she went on a time management course, and left early because she had better things to do with her time.

Not quite the same, but when I was at Secondary School I had a lesson called 'Learning to Learn'.

Absolute waste of time. You had to do things like close your eyes and draw what your partner was describing. Useless in the real world!

I think you should actually feed that back to the people running it.

I agree with QuestionableMouse. I’ve run courses like this previously and I’d really like to know if someone felt like this.

But to answer your question (kind of) lots of people have similar experiences judging by some of the happy sheets we get after our training. My favourite that sticks out was that our corporate induction was... ‘too corporate’!

Yes they've sent me a feedback form.

An old boss sent me on an assertiveness course. Largely because he didn’t like me suggesting opposing ideas to his own. So basically, I was/am assertive and have to go on a course where everyone was less assertive, shy etc. It was awkward.

He was a twat.

I remember in my last term of Year 11 we were told to do a full project on "Stress" which was for PSHE and had nothing to do with our exam or coursework grades

One of the girls was like "like we aren't stressed enough and now we have to produce work on Stress when we have other priorities we're legitimately stressed about "

I don't think anyone did it

I had some outplacement assistance as part of a redundancy package. It was crap. (Fortunately it wasn’t me paying for it.) The adviser was way out of date and a sexist old goat - he told me that my only hope, if I wanted any form of flexible working, was to join an agency “set up for mummies” and freelance. I honestly felt pretty unemployable after the prescribed number of sessions with them. (Ended up OK but I had to tell myself firmly not to take any notice of them.)

When I did my speed awareness course I learnt that when they put a temporary speed limit up on the flashing signs, unless it’s static in a circle, its just advisory.

So actually I learnt to drive faster

On the subject of hours you will never get back, every so often work decide to send me on a social media seminar. They are consistently shit and make me question how people get away with charging good money for it.

I went on an NHS England funded course on Compassion in Care and discovered I hate a lot of my colleagues!

I went on a catheterisation study day only to find out it was mainly about NHS bureaucracy and I was from a private care home and it just wasn't relevant. I went home early by saying one of my kids was ill. It was actually my cat who I then had to take to the vets.

This is very outing so NC. I started a psychotherapy degree type course. Dream career for me.
1/3 of the class had active mental health problems. I had to leave when I kindly disagreed that experiencing mental ill health was an essential pre requisite to being the best sort of therapist- it caused all sorts of splitting and projection, somewhat ironically.
(Thanks for this thread)

I went on a drugs awareness course many years ago and we just got lectured at about the evils of alcohol and told we were drug users too if we drank.Which was fine but 3 of us had already said we had alcoholic family members so had ticked that one off thanks.
Lost count of the number of leadership courses where I’ve had to build stuff out of Lego, build a bridge out of loo roll etc etc.
Went on a introduction to learning course that was cancelled but nobody told us so we accidentally took part in a philosophy lecture instead!

O went to a course decades ago about... I dunno, but 2 or 3 of us went to scope it out for our employer, it was something about driving ideas forward or similar waffle. It was led by an incredibly over-enthusiastic American woman who was quite patronising about the UK (USA much better, obvs). The audience was split into utter acolytes and the sniggeringly cynical. We went back and told our employer it wasn't worth £50 a head, never mind the 100s charged.

I don't think I learned a single useful thing. I just remember that Ms Patronising American had her leg in a cast.

O? I, obviously.

My SIL was on a managing anxiety course which gave her panic attacks and stressed her out so much she would cry about it in the days leading up to each session.

Any and all 'stop smoking' advice, information, advert or material makes me want a cigarette SO MUCH. So, so much. I have before cracked a 5 day abstinent period after seeing three StopfuckingTober ads in a half hour period (I mean I was likely to crack anyway but that was the trigger for the first smoke).

I have coccydnia. I've had it since the birth of ds3, who will be 6 next month. I have been refused steroid injections, anaesthetic injections and any intervention other than joining the walking group for people with back pain. I don't have back pain and as a non driver I walk loads anyway.

I went to a 2 day training to become a mental health first aider - half of the people used it as an 8 hour a day group therapy while the rest of us just had to listen!

One of the units I taught was teamwork and someone suggested I get the students (16-18) to build bridges from uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows. Never again!

The room was a mess. Sticky marshmallow everywhere, broken spaghetti. Then it became a competition on who could stuff the most marshmallows in their mouths.
I won

I went on a course about managing breast feeding with twins. We had to mime getting ourselves a glass of water and a sandwich as it was 'very important to look after mummy too. Breastfeeding is hungry, thirsty work.'

We then had to practise scooping up and latching on both babies at the same time, using very grubby dolls as practise. I asked with which spare arm we were supposed to pick up the imaginary sandwich and drink that sat tantalisingly out of reach while both our arms were trapped supporting the heads of a baby on each boob.

Never did do simultaneous feeding.

Almost all supposedly confidence-boosting work courses have this effect on me.

The problem is that most of these courses are devised by people whose expertise is in marketing them, not in psychology - they have a few Mickey Mouse qualifications which wow a Head Office dimwit and suddenly the course is being 'rolled out' to everyone.

But - psychology isn't like that. It's not one-size-fits all. Anyone with basic counselling skills will tell you that. The rubbish that's peddled in the guise of being motivational often has the potential to do more harm than good. But corporate buffoons get to tick a box that says they've done something about 'wellbeing', and Mr Sales expert who's flogging the training gets a wad of cash.

If you have the courage, tell your manager that your mental health is too precious to be subjected to one-size-fits all training. Or, do your best to ignore it.

The rubbish that's peddled in the guise of being motivational often has the potential to do more harm than good.

Yes, it's true. I think I'll stay away from these things in the future.

If you have the courage, tell your manager that your mental health is too precious to be subjected to one-size-fits all training. Or, do your best to ignore it.

I don't have a proper job at the moment. It was run by a local organisation that gives job hunting help and advice and they help you with your CV and so on. It was actually a free course so I don't want to be ungrateful. I think the help with improving my CV was really the best part.

@niceupthedance yes! The MH first aid course I did was so bad for that, and the teacher seemed to actively encourage it, that I left early.

I got a "we'll tell your employer you skived" patronising email from them. I took a bit too much pleasure in replying that I WAS the employer and I'd been evaluating the course before sending my teams on it - that was a group booking that wouldn't be happening!

I have a long list of online courses that I've been meaning to do for ages. Top of the list is one on How to Overcome Procrastination