Okay, this blog entry is really just a rant so that I can vent and get out some frustration with my day. If you don't feel like reading it, feel free to skip it! I just need to get it all off my chest...
I had to spend today in company diversity training. It was a horrible, horrible experience. I understand that we serve a lot of different populations in the work we do and it's important to be culturally sensitive, so I'm all for information on that. But the way this training was delivered was awful. I hated the model the trainers used for discussion. It basically said that everything in life is based on stimulus-response patterns. If you react negatively to something today, it can all be traced back to something that happened to you in your childhood. And the thing that really triggered me was when she said you can't blame anyone for their reactions. I beg to differ! You can't blame anyone for their emotions, but everyone can certainly control how they decide to react to a given situation. Personal responsibility for your actions didn't seem to be any part of this model. On top of that, the training perpetuated the image of white males as evil oppressors. I really hate that. White males are not responsible for all the bad things in the world. You'd certainly never know that based on my classes today, though. It's really unfortunate. I went into the workshops this morning liking everyone I worked with – or at least not having any negative feelings towards anyone. By the end of the day, I did have very negative feelings for some of my co-workers. Hopefully those will fade with a little bit of time. The day was seriously so horrible that when a car ran a stop sign and almost hit me on my drive home, I regretted it a little. I seriously had the thought that if the car had hit me and I'd maybe broken an arm or leg, at least I would be able to skip the 2nd day of diversity training scheduled for tomorrow.
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