School

School and I don't generally get along.  We never have.  There's a reason why I studied English in university and then Accounting at college, only to end up in a process management role in IT.  Book learning isn't for me - I'm much better at learning 'on the job'.  Unfortunately, some formal education is necessary to prove that I know what I know.  For example, I need a certificate proving that I know all there is to know about change management because I am a change manger.  Otherwise, people would think I make stuff up when I make then follow a particular process or prove that they've met specific requirements before approving their changes.  They'd be sure I do it for no other reason than to contribute to the government bureaucracy that we all marinate in every day.   I suspect they do anyway. Funny the way these things work...

I used to have a certificate in ITIL change management, but then ITIL came out with a newer version and I had to start all over again.  (ITIL is a set of best practices for running an IT shop - it's pretty much based on common sense, but they use old words assigned to knew definitions.)

Reading this stuff is dryer than dirt.  I can (and frequently do) happily pound back 100 pages in a book in one sitting.  Those are fiction, though, and written with entertainment in mind rather than delivery of information.  For the ITIL books, entertainment isn't even on the radar.  It takes me about an hour to read 10 pages, and even then I think I only retain about 25%.

This week has been dedicated to working my way through a 260 page book.  Next week is the class, for which reading the book is a prerequisite, and then the exam.   The exams are designed with the intension of most people failing.  (Really, they've made the questions so complicated that I don't think that the ability to pass the exam has anything to do with one's knowledge of the class content, but that's a whole other rant.)  Please, God, let me pass the exam.

It'll all be over on next Friday afternoon, assuming that I pass.  Friday evening, I drive south of Calgary and pick up my new baby.  Lewis will be coming home.

If you ask me, I think he looks kind of annoyed in this picture.

I asked for an updated picture of him yesterday, and apparently he was disrupted from something important to provide it.