Going back to school

This post sort of follows on from The Butterfly Effect, but doesn't rely on you reading it first. Back in 2013 (I think - not great on timelines) I had been encouraged by my boss (bosses boss to be precise), the very handsome and distinguished Dr. Neil Wooding, to do a masters in something that would interest me. So I'd signed up for a Masters Degree in Business Psychology. It ticked all the work boxes whilst allowing me to pursue my new found passion for Positive Psychology.

The course had three lecturers and for the purposes of this post I shall call them Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb. For those of you too young to remember them, they were three of the fireman in the very old children's program, Trumpton. Pugh, Pugh and Barney Magrew made up the rest of the crew and they were led by Captain Flack. Cuthbert and Dibble were applied psychologists and Grubb was a theoretical psychologist. I was 49 and had been out of full time education for 28 years so it was an interesting experience.

Cuthbert

Cuthbert was in charge of the course and so most of the lessons were with them. I was practising being a good boy and not disrupting the class, but had learnt over many years that if I didn't understand something there were probably others in the same position in the room. So I would provide a service to others by asking the bleeding obvious and taking any flack that came with it. I'd also had my fair share of experience of asking the audience a question and getting tumbleweed in return, so I would always try and respond to Cuthbert when they asked a question. Just to be clear, I wasn't channelling Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and shooting my hand up to answer everything. I'd give the room a chance and then answer before the silence got too painful.