Greenmountaingal: That would be ripe scenario for a lawsuit...Sounds like something they did in psychology classes in the early 70's...all kinds of junk. Some psychologists came to one of my high school psychology classes and was talking about creativity, she would start telling people to stand up and pose a certain way, and about half the class was standing or whatever, she pointed to me and said "Now you crawl through that guy's legs (he was standing with his legs apart), I just looked at her and said "No" and she ordered me to do it again and I said NO louder and she stopped telling me anything. I wasn't about to crawl around on the floor to begin with and much less through a 16-year old boy's legs. Sheesh...the rest of the class was going along with her bull-crap.

Sexual Harassment Training. I figured if you're going to do it, you might as well be educated in it and do it right! 😉

Seriously, it was awful. The instructor was an unhinged Man-Hating Bitch.

Just to add to all this...another seminar I had to attend was about how to relax on the job while still remaining alert. My job was in a mental hospital for violent criminals...hmmmm....how much did we really want or need to "relax"?
At this seminar, it was suggested that we should have little impromptu dance sessions while we were working. To illustrate, the trainer put an old 78 RPM record on an old turntable phonograph and had us all get up and dance the Hokey-Pokey. Apparently...that's what it's all about.

Everything was different before 9/11. Some companies still practice these absurdities, though. Look up some of the work seminar lawsuits. There was one I read about from a few years back where an employee had been fired for refusing to participate in a "men's awareness" training day in which he was supposed to take off his clothes along with the other male employees and his supervisor and talk about his sex life.

Most all of them, "information" that was obvious and I already knew.

cherokeepatti, to be fair about it, although I would hate to have to go to a seminar on it, the book did help me to get a much better job at a crucial time in my life and a friend of mine went from a teaching job to school principal in a year and a half. But if anyone is interested, a seminar is not the answer; just get the book and apply whichever habits you think might help you.

You've got all my admiration, cherokeepatti. I honked like a goose (once), flapped my arms (once), sat down. And I did it because three powerful hospital administrators stood over me screaming at me to do it. One of the other teachers hid behind a pillar. At the hokie pokey thing, I took a tip from him and I hid behind a pillar.

The entire 7 Habits series was ridiculous.

I understand,cherokeepatti. These things are nearly always a supreme waste of time. I don't think Scott Peck himself would approve of what you describe; it sounds like your bosses were the ones who needed to read that book.

One of the most irritating things about these awful training sessions is the huge bundle of money these trainers get for doing these useless events.

Did you do the 'chat to your neighbour for two minutes then stand up and introduce them to the group' exercise ?
Staff training days.....ugh !

My theory about it is that bosses no longer have the right to humiliate employees when they feel like it, at least not without fear of lawsuits. So they dream up touchy feely "training sessions" in which employees are forced into socially awkward or outright embarrassing situations. Some of these situations are so awful and embarrassing that employees have successfully sued their employees, bringing the whole situation around full circle.

You are right, cherokeepatti! I stand corrected. You paid more attention than I did.

GreenMountainGal: they gave us a scheduler to schedule every minute of our workday, which was impossible when they kept calling stupid meetings for trivial things that would pull us away from our jobs, and that was in addition to having to cover for workers because they were either pulled away for part of the day or to cover for others when they were sick or injured.

Wow, we did things like that in kindergarten.

Oh no !!! Yours was 1000 times worse than mine.

GreenMountainGal: There were a lot of corporations and universities that were teaching the 7 Habits courses back then, they did it where I worked right before 9-11 and I had to wonder if they had an inkling what was coming, things changed dramatically at work after that.

What the fuck?

There are way too many to list! It would be eaiser to list which work seminar's I have attended that I got something out of them.
1)
The end.

Picklebobble, yes, I HAVE done that one at least a couple of times! I found it awkward and insulting since any adult can almost certainly do it.

GreenMountainGal: It wasn't Scott Peck who came up with the 7 Habits Seminars, it was Stephen Covy.