On boredom mitigation

On boredom mitigation

One thing led to another, and I found myself at the mercy of a five-day training course.

Naturally, you use your time constructively, and you take in what you are supposed to. But before long, the boredom sets in, and you are not allowed to kill your fellow delegates TO DEATH, just for the hell of it, even if you try to disguise it as a team-building exercise.

What to do?

I find a few little tactics get you over the worse of the sociopathic urges and back into the happy learning zone:

- See how many Training Department pens you can smuggle back to your desk on the first day

- On subsequent sessions, try to beat that record

- On Friday, just as the training department are beginning to despair at going 3,400 per cent over their stationery budget, return them all at once without getting caught

- Extra points if they are glued together into a 1:144 scale model of HMS Belfast, with working guns that fire Argos pens and/or Ikea pencils

Trust me, the time will literally fly by.