I’ve just finished my latest work assignment – three years doing the documentation, training, change management and knowledge management for an implementation of SAP Retail.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a really interesting project, and I’ve learnt more about retail operations than any sensible person would want to know.\u00c2\u00a0 Being a contractor, it’s inevitable that at the end of the project I would be ‘dispensed with’.\u00c2\u00a0 This is my fourth large SAP implementation, so the fourth time I’ve been let go.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s always difficult (I suffer separation anxiety), but you get used to it.<\/p>\n
One of the activities\u00c2\u00a0I always go through is a handover or knowledge transfer to the people (typically, permanent – i.e. cheaper – employees).\u00c2\u00a0 Because we’re a global organization, and my work is being distributed amongst a number of people (I see this as a compliment – it takes multiple employees to replace just one of me!), this meant some last business trips.<\/p>\n
Last month I was back in Manchester (England) to train\u00c2\u00a0a number of people on OnDemand (a software application I’ve been using to create training simulations).\u00c2\u00a0 That turned out to be a\u00c2\u00a0total waste of time.\u00c2\u00a0 I was supposed to train five people over three days, but one of them had the week off so I was down to four before I even started.\u00c2\u00a0 Two of the remaining attendees were puled out of the course for a day to attend to ‘more important’ matters, which left me with only two people who attended the full course.\u00c2\u00a0 And since then (all of a month ago) both of them<\/em> have now been promoted into new positions and won’t be using what I trained them in at all!\u00c2\u00a0 Still, at least it gave me the opportunity to say goodbye to some of the people I’ve been working with over the past few years.<\/p>\n This week I was in Guatemala, to do the same thing.\u00c2\u00a0 This time there was only one trainee, and thankfully she was committed to the training for the full three days.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m still not convinced that she will personally be using OnDemand, but at least she now has the knowledge to pass on to other developers, if necessary.<\/p>\n In addition to the chance to spend three days with the lovely Ana Lucia, I like going down to Guatemala.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an interesting place (plus, I think it does us in the ‘modern world’ good to visit what is effectively a third-world country for a reality-check every so often).\u00c2\u00a0 Guatemala City (where I was) is apparently very violent and crime-ridden, but I’ve never had any problems (probably because I get chauffered about everywhere…).\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0That said, there were plenty of armed private security guards around everywhere, mostly toting pump-action shotguns.\u00c2\u00a0 I also saw a shop that would bulletproof your car.\u00c2\u00a0 The sign in the shop window advertised the various grades of bulletproofing you could get via pictures of the weapons that each grade could withstand – everything from assault rifles to hand-held rocket-launchers.\u00c2\u00a0 Very comforting.<\/p>\n On the last day of the course we finished early (4pm vs. the 8 or 9pm on the previous days) and went off to Antigua.\u00c2\u00a0 We also went there on my last visit to Guatemala, but it rained the whole time, so Ana Lucia was determined to take me back there now that the weather was better.\u00c2\u00a0 Which it was.\u00c2\u00a0 Clear blue skies and plenty of sunshine.\u00c2\u00a0 This time I could see the volcano clearly, although still no molten lava or anything else a lifetime of watching disaster movies has led me to expect.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, it was nice to sit there in the square, watching the world go by, gently wafting away the many locals who wanted paying to clean my shoes (despite them being sparkling already thanks to an conditioned ability to do my ‘sweats’ so I could burst a zit in them, courtesy of seven years in a military boarding school…<\/p>\n Anyway,\u00c2\u00a0that was my last trip to Guatemala.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, probably my last trip anywhere for a while.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m joining a project that is famously over-budget already, so the chance of traveling further than the cafateria and back is extremely slim. Still, it’s been a fun project, so I can’t complain. Three years, a dozen trips to various countries, and some new lifelong friends. Can’t ask for more from a project than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve just finished my latest work assignment – three years doing the documentation, training, change management and knowledge management for an implementation of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}