Occupational Health & Safety Training: A Battle/Noir/War Diary

Day 1: The Beginning

With one girl, two nerds, one normal quiet guy, and one of the foulest flannel-wearing bogans I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.

There were 3 rows, can you guess where the two nerds sat? Of course you can. And the bogan? You don’t even have to say. I sat in the middle of the two only signs of sanity available. The calm eye of the cyclone.

Every time one of the nerds front and centre brought up “just one more safety concern” I wanted to give him a safety concern he’d never forget.

Day 2: Hell Is Other People

The Goddamn nerd keeps paraphrasing everything the expert says just so he can hear people awkwardly agree with him. Oh, and he tried to tell a funny joke. Good joke. Everybody laugh. Fucker.

Did he laugh at his own jokes? Did he ever. Forcing the presenter to laugh awkwardly and patronisingly along with him. Meanwhile everyone else in the room looked at their feet; to hide our expressions of utter contempt.

In fact if he hadn’t laughed at his own joke, we probably wouldn’t have known that he’d told one.

Day 3: The Early Signs of Hulking Out

Today I found myself forming a silent allegiance with my mortal enemy, The Bogan to pay out Nerd #1, or Captain Obvious as he will now be known.

After a hard morning of paraphrasing information that was fed to him, claiming it as his own, Captain Obvious proceeded to enlighten all in his path “Oh! I didn’t know that!” – A fairly redudant exclamation in a training program developed soley to teach us things that we evidently did not know.

Then came our catered meal break, where more unnecessary conversation was initiated from the mouth I started to hate more than any other. After he politely ignored my miserable attempt at engaging him, if only to hear myself speak for a change, the conversation moved to computer equipment in the home – my area.

‎”I have a website, I sell stuff like that.” he said much to my dismay, as I just knew that more would follow “It doesn’t work at the moment, but I could give you the URL anyway.” What? I didn’t bother to question him, I didn’t want to hear it. Relentlessly he pushed on “I’ve set up a PHP file to say it’s out of order.” Thanks for that, Captain Whatsyerface.

After he explained how poorly set up his system was, making some excuse or another, I watched him write down his crappy website for an uninterested bystander, who smiled, accepted the note, and pocketed it. It would be found in the rubbish later.

I was getting all green and shit, I was on the verge of hulking out.

Day 4: No Flash Photography

A new trainer presented himself before the class, introducing himself as… Phil. No complaints there, it’s hard to hate anyone named Phil. He reminded me of everyone’s father, mixed with a radio presenter, mixed with Mr Scorpio somehow – constantly talking but going off-topic. It was nice, because at least Captain Obvious(ly A Dickweed) was unable to get a word in.

Perhaps nerds wouldn’t spoil my day? A wishful thought, floating like a bubble blown into a fierce wind. Pop. Please split up into groups. I looked in horror as he approached my desk. I raised my arm, pointing to the door – panic-stricken. “You’re in that group” I cried at Captain Dickweed, along with my comrades. Even Phil directed him out the door. I owe him one.

Lunch. I made it, and yet I wish I hadn’t. Conversation varied from socially uncomfortable, to socially unacceptable. Not in the fun way – bowel movements and exploding cats were discussed, probably funny in the right time and place – but I can only imagine that place with him as far away from me as possible, being eaten by lions, or sharks, or both somehow. Something relevent, consumption related.

We ventured to the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) building, to perform our mock-inspection. Captain Dickweed would jump the gun and point to occupational health and safety flaws that didn’t exist while I corrected him, on more than one occasion. “Can I take pictures?”… The tour guide said he could, and I tried to swallow my own tongue, longing for death.

Here we have a radio booth. Click. Here we have some stairs. Click. Here we have a make-up room full of mirrors. Click, click, fucking click. Here we have a dark room full of computer monitors. I tried to turn away but it was too late… FLASH! …

…The room fell silent, as my angered face was illuminated by his camera phone for one brief moment. He now had a photograph of my utter contempt. Everyone saw it. I couldn’t see a Goddamned thing, aside from my daydream from earlier involving sharks, and his face.

The tour concluded, and we said our thank-yous, and goodbyes. We made our way back to the class and split up into our groups again. Adults have a funny habit of surpressing things like this, but I couldn’t help it I had to say something “He is an EMBARASSMENT. For the record, he does NOT represent the company I work for. As far as you guys are concerned, I do.” They laughed with understanding “Oh thank GOD! It’s not just me who feels that way”, then poindexter came back into the room to tell us something unimportant about a fire extinguisher, or otters – I don’t know, I didn’t care anymore.

The day concluded with him leaving early, just as it had begun with him arriving late for the 4th day in a row. My desire for him to be out of the room conflicted with the fact that he had no fucking excuse. If he outlives me tomorrow, avenge me.

Day 5: Constant Judgement Day

The day began like any other, with my teeth grinding and my head pounding coincidentally just as Captain Obvious burst through the door – wearing his virtual Cape of Intolerability. It was only mere seconds before he began narrating his life, somewhat like myself; but absolute shite.

‎”Oh yeah. Haha, I don’t like this fake coffee. Maybe I’ll go downstairs and get a real one. Nah, too lazy. Oh wait, nah yeah, might as well.” He left, and I prayed the elevator would have a horrible malfunction, somehow propelling toward the sun via some divine miracle.

Class began. “Oh hi um, uh, sorry my manager’s just giving me a call. Is it okay if I take this outside?” It was probably just his parents, or girlfriend, letting him know that they hated him almost as much as I did. Why couldn’t he just quietly leave to take the call like anyone else? Why did he pretend his manager gave a flying fuck what he was doing? An optimist would say it was cancer, eating at his brain.

Lunch was glorious, the great outdoors; the greatest thing about them being that he had decided to stay inside. He had a habit of ruining every beautiful silence… though noise normally isn’t all that bad. I rationalised that I would have gone out even if it was hailing basketballs of ice, or even lava. Sadly the sun shone bright, and I consoled myself that at least the end of the day was nigh.

A quiet activity followed – at least it was supposed to be that way as we worked individually. He looked at his page, perplexed, and turned to ask me
“Hey, how do you spell extinguisher?”
“I don’t care.”
“No, but c’mon how’s it spelt?”
“I DON’T care. It’s not important.”
“…”
“Use the dictionary on your phone.”
“…”
Apparently he was impervious to disdain.

Finally, a video – it was something 80′s and British. The only thing I expected to learn from it was that none of the actors had had any work since. It was awful enough without a particular invidivual getting up to adjust the blinds, close the doors, and rock on his chair while laughing at every unfunny moment of the program – even inappropriately comparing one of the actors to his CEO.

The lights flickered back on and I was free to go. I fled. I looked over my shoulder only to ensure he didn’t follow us as we entered the nearest pub. Waiting, holding my breath, nervously looking about until the coast was truly clear. I breathed a sigh of relief… Now able to drink Captain Obvious out of existence entirely.

I stumbled home and reminded myself of him as I wrote all of this. Fuck. I need another drink. Goodnight.