27 May, 2010

I am Competent

For weeks I have been working on the major assignment for the subject I'm studying. It was important to me to do well, so I stopped going out, cut out all distractions (including blogging) and dedicated my life to this assignment.

The assignment required hours of research on the Australian vocational education system and the government bodies that oversee them. After spending my entire working life in the private sector, this glimpse of the public sector left me stunned. After all this research, I still can't draw a diagram showing all the various organisations and departments and how they connect to each other. I found one government department who's sole purpose is to oversee another depatrment, which is responsible for the oversight of a third department.

To complete the assignment I had to interview a manager of a training provider about how the organisation is run. I pestered this poor man for an interview until he decided I wasn't going to go away and it was easier to just give in.  I probably didn't use the time well. I was so grateful that he had given me half an hour of his time that I spent twenty minutes thanking him.

So after all this effort I received my results yesterday: You have achieved competence.

Competence ??

That's it?    I'm competent?

I feel robbed. I was expecting something a little more dramatic. I was aiming for Really Really Competent. I had even dared to dream of Über Competent.

This was not a satisfactory return on effort. 
 
Next assignment I'm going to have a bludge.

3 comments:

  1. Oooh, competent - that is a killer. What kind of nincompoop came up with that category. Personally, I believe you deserve an "awesome". Consider yourself re-graded.

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  2. I did a certificate IV course in business management. Ditto major assignment, 6 wks of intense research, analysis, compiled a massive business plan & got a 'C'. To say I was underwhelmed was an understatement...had this whole speech prepared about why I deserved an 'A' only to hear him say, 'that's C for competent, the only other grade was not competent'!

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