I am a highly-trained professional!

My boss has been gone for the last two weeks. She has been in training. While I don't mind being unsupervised, I think the "training" thing has gotten out of hand in the Federal Government.

My cubicle walls are completely covered in certificates I have received for completing a multitude of training courses over the past two years. Some of them are useful - "Grants Training", "Advanced Microsoft Excel", "Dale Carnegie Public Speaking" (great class by the way). Some of them are annoying but necessary - "IT Security Awareness", "Public Records Keeping". Some are downright absurd - "Motivated Meetings" training... "Email" training... "Ethics" training... "Tribal Governments Management" training! My FederalEntity has NOTHING to do with Tribal governments, but they offered it on golearn.gov, so I took it.

After breezing through 20 screens of an online module and answering 5 true/false questions, I'm officially trained in both the unbelievably specific field of "ethics" AND the ever-politically sensitive arena of "tribal government management"! Who knew it was so easy? I figure I must be half way to my PhD from University of Phoenix Online.

There are two positive aspects regarding Federal training that, in fairness, I must highlight:

1. The Government cannot pay to enroll an employee in graduate school. However, the Government can pay for individual graduate school classes under the guise of "training". As long as the classes can be related in some way to the mission of the paying FederalEntity (note: the classes don't have to relate to one's specific job function, just the overall FederalEntity mission), the Government can pay for your classes. Some offices will only pay for 2-3 classes a year, others are more generous with their training money. Some will even give you administrative leave (extra vacation) so you can get your homework done! And hey, if you happppppen to get a graduate degree in the process, good for you! But remember the Government cannot, under any circumstances, pay for your graduate degree...

(Side note: I've been thinking about going this route for grad school, but I've resisted so far because it ensures that I will be tied down in this cubicle here for another few years... even for a free graduate degree, it's not worth it.)

2. There are times when I just really need a break from the office. And I'm not talking in the "lets go hide in Starbucks for an hour" way. This is when off-site training is extremely useful - it's like an elementary school field trip. This past Monday, I took a Microsoft Access training class at an off-site location. It was great - they had free pastries, granola bars, soda, cookies, and string cheese - and best of all, I didn't have to go into work at all that day! Nobody in my office even uses MS Access... for anything... ever! A waste of time? No way, man, free granola bars! My coworker once went to a week-long training class in Delaware. He said it was like sleep-away camp, and it included an all-you-can-eat buffet!

So now my cubicle walls are now completely covered in meaningless certificates - there is no space left for my achievements to be displayed. This morning I uncovered 3 more certificates that I needed to hang (CPR training, Emergency Management training, "Honorable Mention" Halloween Costume Contest certificate!), so I taped them to my file cabinet.

My boss jokes that I should list all of these accomplishments on my resume. I used to laugh at the thought until yesterday when I was reviewing job applications from current Federal employees who are trying to get hired onto my staff. One candidate had listed 2 pages worth of these "trainings" in his resume under the heading "Skills & Certifications", including many of the same pointless ones I've taken ("Ethics"!). Not surprising though - this particular candidate was also in the process of getting his PhD... from the University of Phoenix Online. I promise you I am not making this up.