I discovered test anxiety later than most, the result of an infatuation with my own (highly over-rated) bookishness and relatively low hurdles. I paid for it early-on in college when faux-cleverness wasn't enough to compensate for lack of preparation. Sometimes--perhaps oftentimes--there's a rather sizeable difference between being clever and being prepared. So I have learned to hedge my bets by over-preparation. In the process, I've turned myself into a problem-solving automaton on Math tests and an oversized Pez dispenser of memorized minutiae on standardized tests. It works well enough for the "education" I'm paying for these days.
This week, the "education" was a little different.
Today's test involved two pages of multiple choice questions, one page of True/False questions, plus a few revolvers and a live ammo., courtesy of the La Crosse Gun Club's "Women on Target" handgun safety course. Apart from passing a driver's license exam, I've never taken a "test" that carried so much possibility for real-world mayhem. I'd used rifles for target-shooting twice before. But that was when I was twenty and immortal...as were those around me. Paintball was no help, as it carries the triple-assurance that the guns have safeties, barrel-guards and can't kill anyone. Worse, when we handled unloaded guns on Thursday night, I discovered that I'd picked up a baaaad habit from paintball, namely curling my finger reflexively around the trigger. That scared me.
In short, over-preparing wasn't an option, and neither was my competitive streak which drives it. Friday evening involved a certain amount of soul-searching, because the stakes were so high.
Fortunately, the folks who offer this training can and do over-prepare. Which makes it so much easier to stop freaking out and do what actually matters--namely shut up, listen, ask questions until the answers make sense, and, for pity's sake, focus.
All in all, it went rather well. I was twice reminded to keep my finger outside the trigger guard when I had the .22 pointed down in the "loaded but not yet firing" position. I found that I'm absolutely unfazed by the bang of a gun and its kickback, at least for .22s and .38 specials, and that the shockwave of a .44 magnum going off like small cannon next to me is only somewhat distracting.
But, of critical importance, absolutely no one was hurt, unless you count a few hammer-bites on the thumbs that are the wages of gripping a pistol too high. Although I can't help but think that those are almost a rite of passage, a form of symbolic scarification in a tribal initiation ceremony. ;-)
And it's all thanks to folks who make it as safe as possible to learn things that can't be learned any other way. Big ups to the La Crosse Rifle Club (and the NRA education programs that back them up) for that.
The takeaway from this, believe it or not, is not self-congratulation. While learning a modicum of gun safety can easily and literally be a matter of life or death, it's also probably moot because I'll likely stick to archery for target practice "therapy." No, the take-home is that Corporate America could learn quite a lot from the folks who hang out at the clubhouse out on North Chipmunk Road. Basically, there's only so much of practical use that can be picked up from schoolwork and seminars. The rest, particularly in I/T, is picked up on-the-fly. Hopefully you won't break production systems or whack live data while you're learning the useful stuff.
But the responsibility for setting up that "over-prepared" environment is definitely not that of the rank and file I/T folks. Sure, you can have every right to expect your people to be self-teaching (and I hope you'd have the great, good sense to fire anyone who walked in claiming to know it all). But if the only available "lab" is live systems, the fault for any mayhem rests directly on management. In other words, the folks who couldn't budget the money or person-hours to make it safe to learn from mistakes--much less the resources to rectify them before they become disasters. Bottom line: If those you count upon to be self-taught live in a perpetual state of test anxiety, you can kiss real problem-solving, not to mention any hope of innovation innovation, goodbye.
