Dispatches from a Cargo Cultist

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

LOL!

Most amusing bit of irony, there, L.

Thanks for the laugh.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I ask for forgiveness about my comment but it seems that the incident fits certain Swedish stereotypes... 

Material for a movie if you ask me.

[pieces o nine]

By Jove! I think there's Lifetime Movie in there, somewhere... 

I was relieved to read that the the sunshine-subsistence nekkid yoga peeps weren't accidentally rounded up and herded back to the dungeons!   

[Lindorm]

Glad you liked my little tale. 

Here's a link to one of the articles filled with Righteous Indignation and Moral Outrage in a local paper. It's a rather staid one, so it's all completely worksafe, too. And in Swedish, which might perhaps be a bit of a problem. Some of the "reader's comments" are absolutely hysterical, I promise! 

http://na.se/nyheter/hallsberg/1.517645-klubb-for-valdssex-mitt-i-villasamhallet

My next tale is already in the writing, and will actually take place not far away from Åsbro, a bit further down the line. It is a dark tale full of sound and fury and with a not insignificant amount of blasphemy and violence, too.

It is the tale of the subversive beaver of Jakobsdamm.


Coming sooooooon-ish!

[Pachyderm]

Gaffer tape!

[Lindorm]

No gaffer tape, no subversive beavers -I have simply been waaay too busy. Sorry! 

One of the things that has kept me busy are trainee drivers, which as always is a mix of ups and downs. One is a natural talent, another one might be  ... well, perhaps a natural talent for something, but not driving goods trains. My current trainee is one of those that makes me smile when I go to work, though - a young lady with tattoos and piercings here and there, a great sense of humour and a very nice taste in music, mainly EBM and early heavy metal of the Iron Maiden / AC/DC / Joan Jett variety. Slogans of the day have varied from "Hey, I'm driving a heavy diesel -where's the company issue wifebeater and beercan" to "Yes, but have you tried looking at the traction control system from a queer gender analysis perspective?". In other words, we are having a lot of fun, she is making very good progress, and I feel like I have really accomplished something. It's a nice feeling! 

[Darlica]

"Yes, but have you tried looking at the traction control system from a queer gender analysis perspective?".

Can I see an interesting "guest teacher" appearance in the new KY3 class in the making?


I'll pay to be a fly on the wall! Or I can buy the booze for you two as you sketch up the lecture.

What? me? instigating?

[Lindorm]

My current trainee, the young lady mentioned above, has almost talked me into getting a tatto on my upper arm of one of our locomotives. Well, I suppose that if I have to have a fortysomething-crisis, I at least ought to do something fun out of it, and the whole thing with underage mistresses, ponytail hairdo and getting a Harley-Davidson seems a bit tired.

One of these, perhaps?
http://www.jarnvag.net/images/bild/lokguide/Rc41191Malmo2009.jpg

Or a diesel?
http://www.jarnvag.net/images/bild/lokguide/T44385Malmo2006stor.jpg

Hmmmm....

[Pachyderm]

I seem to recall an image of a train carrying glowing steel through the night. That would be cool.

[Lindorm]

Yes, dear customer BigCorp, we can of course provide training to your sub-contractor´s staff in a variety of subjects. Though it would be nice of you to actually tell us what those subjects are, how many staff you want to have trained and when. And we do understand that you yourself have a shortage of trained staff, and therefore would like us to take as much respnsibility for the training as possible. But when we say that the only way we will be able to find staff qualified to train others in Subject X is by poaching your own existing staff, we really mean it. And if you require our instructors to whiffle off to Italy in order to be trained on the technical aspexts of System Ka-Wow by the manufacturer, it would be nice to have a long-term planning horizon. And by long-term, I do not mean a text message on my company mobile telling me that the course is postponed -arriving whilst I am practically on the way to the airport. We did agree that training group sizes could vary by a reasonable amount due to various unforseen circumstances, but sending 37 people on a course designed for a maximum of 10 trainees is taking the piss a bit, especially since the conference room you booked only holds a maximum of eight people to start with.


... by the way, I have now changed employers -one of the reasons for my long absence on these forums. I now work for a small-ish company providing training, consultancy and similar services to customers within the rail industry. We also operate several basic training courses for train drivers and do various other interesting stuff. I still drive some trains on the side, too, to keep my licence active and myself from going completely insane. It's fun, but sometimes also very hectic. A large customer has more or less driven another instructor within the company to a heart condition and long-term medical leave, and now the MD of the company I work for and myself have formed a sort of special task force to kick that customer into shape. It's an experience...

[Griffin NoName]

Nice to see you back; sounds like things are/have been bumpy.

[pieces o nine]

Good to see you, Lindorm.

Hope you and the doc can whip get the Evil Customer into shape...

[Lindorm]

Thanks for the welcome-backs! 

Yes, things have been quite bumpy, but also quite fun. I threw in the towel at my old job early this spring, finishing with being a sort of operating staff representative in a big project for a new customer. The last day I had at my old place of work was a sort of local staff meeting which turned into a surprise leaving do for me. The company gave me a big artisanal crystal glass bowl as a thank you, and my ex-manager, aided by a few colleagues gave me a huge hangover the next day.

Then, it was off and away on a training course for my new employer -pedagogy, didactics, seminars on the philosophy behind the rules and regulations governing the swedish railways, some advanced courses on technical subjects etc. We were just eight "advanced trainees" on the course, which was held at a breakneck pace due to various circumstances -we only had about half the time normally used to cover the subjects, so it was a case of putting in a lot of twelve-to-sixteen-hour days. In a way, it was a very stimulating environement, too -we were all there for the same reason, no one was a slouch, and it was very much of a total immersion experience, at bit like a sect of fanatical railway professionals. The courses, the instructors and the fellow trainees were all at a very high level, and I learned a lot.

Anyhow, having graduated from the course, I am now a instructor and examinator approved by the Swedish Transport Agency to instruct, train, evaluate, examin and license operating railway staff of all categories in Sweden, both on theoretical as well as practical subjects. In essence, if you ever come to Sweden and go by train, it might very well be my signature on the piece of paper that says that the driver of your train meets all the standards and requirements and is fit to be a train driver.

I still have a bit of a problem getting my head around that concept.

Since then, I have worked for my new employer, a small company that does quite a bit of training and consultancy in the Swedish and Norwegian railway industry. Most of the staff at this company are old grizzled veterans -I, with my 18 years of experince is something of the new blood, and I have learned a lot from my new colleagues. During the summer, we were unfortunatley hit by quite a few of the staff falling ill and going on long-term sick leave, so I ended up having to assume responsibility for the train driver training courses in Stockholm, all in all about 55 trainees in various stages of the course. Gulp, and then some. So much for the gentle introduction.

And then, another guy fell ill, and he happened to handle one of our biggest corporate customers, for whom we are doing a few project that I was somewhat involved with. Since I was the only one who had any idea of what was going on with those clients, I ended up as the person in charge of those projects, standing in for the guy who fell ill. I did manage to exercise som managerial talent and fob off the driver training courses to someone else, and since then I have been handling training for a few corporate customers.

A bit of a wild ride, to be sure -but on the other hand, the boss is good at showing his appreciation when you have done something beyond the ordinary, and he does give you the backup you need, if you ask for it. He also has the sense to realize that his talents lies in the adminstrative field, and leaves the technical decisions to the instructors. He's also good at thrusting people waaaay out of their comfort zone, in a good way. Thus i ended up as a sort of head honcho for our biggest corporate customer, with about six months working for the company under my belt.

Double gulp time, but it is also a lot of fun.

And the wild ride sometimes takes you to exciting places like Ånge, a railway junction town in the north, pop. 2872, and a goods yard bigger than the rest of the town and not much else. Oh, there's a sporting goods store that sells their own brand of camouflage hunter's clothing, and a combined pizza/thai/kebab joint. And a hotel that lies next to the marshalling yard and is full of railway staff lodging away from home. The town closes when the moose hunting season officially begins.

But that's about it. There are no tumbleweeds in Sweden, but they would certainly not be out of place together with a few twangs on a steel guitar on Ånge Main Street a late and windy evening.

And in a few weeks, I will be going up to Kiruna in the far north, where the sun has set, and won't rise until early april next year. Unless it's off to Italy on that blighted training course. Or somewhere else? The driving turns I still do from time to time for my old employer have taken on a distinctly therapeutic tint...

Pieces of Nine: I think I used a certain amount of british english in my previous post. I meant MD, as in managing director, not the medical specialist.

[Opsa]

That's okay, we yanks have to get our heads out of our beehives every once in a while. It's very good to hear from you, L. Sounds like you've been awfully busy.

[Griffin NoName]

All seems very intense, in a good way. Co-incidentally I heard from a friend today who said his brother had just completed training as a train driver (on the south coast here).