Lighthearted: AIBU to not want someone to knit whilst I'm giving a seminar?

[matildasquared]

I'm honestly curious.

Part of my job involves giving trainings, sometimes in workplaces, sometimes in adult education classes. They last for a full or a half day.

I don't really stand on ceremony, of course. I tell people if they want a bathroom break or a cup of tea, no need to wait for the break.

Last week I was giving a training for volunteers at a particular organisation and one of the women up front took our her knitting just as I was beginning. I did a double-take and she noticed and said, "Oh, I always do this at presentations and lectures, it helps me concentrate." The people around her nodded.

I just shrugged and carried on. It was a good session.

Now if I were in a role of a long-term instructor or advisor or something I would have taken her aside and let her know how unprofessional it looked. But I'm not, it wasn't my place, so I didn't.

But AIBU in feeling really disrespected? My reaction really surprised me, because I don't think of myself as really rigid and uptight. And certainly I can listen intently to something whilst my hands are occupied--just listened to the radio whilst making jam, in fact. But it just seemed so damned rude. I had to really swallow down the urge to say, "Put that away, I'm not a TV!"

Would you have felt the same?

I think it is disrespectful not to ask you first, maybe quietly saying 'look, I like to knit as it helps me concentrate, is this ok with you, perfectly happy not to etc'
its rude to just get your knitting out and sit there whilst someone is talking. Also there isnt much noise when you knit, especially when you use wooden needles.

I agree with chipshop, since I can remember as a student in a seminar being irrationally distracted and irritated by a knitting fellow student.

Where does it end? Sewing is a quiet occupation but is a bit of peaceful cross stitch in a lecture OK? Tapestry? Bead stringing? How about those rubber band bracelets kids are currently obsessed with?

Crocheting would have been better - much less elbow action & noiseless

It's hilarious. Rude, but hilarious.

I have the attention span of a newborn baby for most things and an even worse tendency to drift/drop off to sleep in seminars/training. I wonder whether this woman does too? I'm thinking that perhaps the knitting helps her stay awake?

I may try this myself

I gave a seminar a while back and a load of people got out camcorders and started filming me. Not smartphones, mind you, full on camcorders. I told them they did not have my consent and to put the machines away. It was v distracting.

The people you were lecturing to were volunteers so they don't need to appear to be ultra professional. They are not trying to impress, but they are trying to help by volunteering and they give their time free of charge to this organisation.

I don't understand your objections to the knitting.

It is much ruder to get up, wonder off and make a cup of tea without waiting for the break time.

Toilet - well sometimes you just need to go!

Personally I'd find knitting extremely distracting whether giving or attending the seminar. It's a very long time since my GCSEs but one of my invigilators thought it a sensible use of her time, I've never seen a bunch of more irritated students.

Crocheting?

I might have been appeased if at the end of the training she presented me with a ipad cosy.

Oh, gosh. I used to knit as a student. I had an agreement with our tutor - he wouldn't object to my knitting and I wouldn't object to him smoking his pipe. This was a little while ago, though.

That sounds very cosy actually.

No, you don't need to ask about disabilities before training, you don't even need to know about them. It's ludicrous and I think offensive for you to say you're fine with someone doing something if they "have a disability" when it's not fine if they don't. Especially when the accommodation you would have to make is completely trivial for you in either situation.

In any case, I suspect an individual who knits to get concentrate through these events is not someone who recognises she has a disability, she's just discovered something that works for her. If it was from a more formal process that led to a recognition of a disability and how it could be managed then I suspect she would've come up with an activity that was more socially acceptable.

But even if she did have and know of her disability, she had no obligation to share it with you as a guest trainer of her as a volunteer.

Treat people as individuals, it shouldn't make a jot of difference how you treat someone if you know they have "a disability" or not.

Okay, fredfred, this isn't a cage match.

Boffinmum--camcording you? That is just creepy.

Sorry to derail, but could you give a reference for your use of 'trainings'? Have recently had a discussion about it, and the person using it couldn't cite a single source that defined it as he was using it, but I would find it oddly satisfying to prove his point...!

OP: I think you are more rigid and uptight than you think.

A couple of your replies on here are over the top and quite rude.

Please don't argue grammar with me, you'll just hurt yourself.

Okay, fredfred, this isn't a cage match.

DoJo trainings is used, generally where the more normal English use would be training sessions, it's unusual and certainly not a phrase I would suggest writing where grammar pedants might be, I don't think you can call it wrong though, certainly plenty of usage, which is all that matters.

In this context the full term is "training session," with "training" being the participle modifying "session." The "session" is often dropped, leading to the use of "training" here to describe one discrete training event. So someone would say, "Did you go to the training [session] on Tuesday?" "Will there be any more of those training [session]s?"

Much the way we'd say "preliminaries" to refer to "preliminary examinations." Obviously we don't use plural adjectives in English but it's become common usage.

Paxtecum indeed! Lol. That should be your wrestling name.

matildasquared it's certainly not often dropped, it's occasionally dropped in speech such that you can just about get away with it in informal writing. It may be more common in some dialects, although I don't know of any, but I would expect any editor to correct it.

fredfredgeorgejnr

That's what I thought - this was someone who was trying to use it in the context of a piece of formal writing, and I suggested he used a more widely recognised term to avoid people (like me, in fairness) thinking he was overly invested in 'management speak' and words which aren't really used anywhere but the rarefied environment where he had heard it. He was convinced it was in the dictionary as a legitimate plural for 'training' but couldn't find any sources and I didn't think it qualified as 'in common use'. We eventually agreed that if I thought it made him sound like a wang, then others would too, and it was probably best avoided.

No, I'd leave it out of a formal document.

The difference between knitting and most other crafty stuff is that when you're good at it you don't actually have to look at your work. I can knit through subtitled films! So a knitter could easily pay attention to a lecturer.

Whether or not it's rude remains another issue. I have ADHD. Knitting helps me to sit still but I have other coping strategies for when it's not appropriate.

I've only ever heard trainings from an Italian colleague who I assumed had not quite got the English idiom right. I've never heard it from a native speaker of English.

Hang on, this woman was a volunteer you say? So there giving up her own time for the benefit of others. I think she should be able to knit away to her hearts content and anyone moaning about it needs a slap with a wet kipper.

Allmimsy, it's not for a formal document, in my opinion, because it's vague a training whatcourse, seminar, lecture?

But when there's a specific training session in currency, then I've always heard it referred to as "a training" informally. "Are you giving one of your trainings today?"

This is a random sample consisting of me and a few government/charity/law offices in the US and the UK.