we can talk about robots, just don't write it down

I'm teaching class at a military base. I was told by the woman who purchased the class "Most of the students are experts in DoDAF (the theory I teach) and your software tool. This is kind of a check the box class we need for the customer, to show we've had formal training." She then went on to say that I could breeze over the theory part so the students didn't get bored.

Right. Well, there are a few problems with that statement. The first being that none of the students understand DoDAF. Oh sure, they all claim to have been doing it for years, but it's obvious from their questions they really don't have a clue, like when one woman asked me why an out of the box report contained the data it contained. I was like "uh, that's the standard information that goes in that report". She then went on to tell me that I was wrong and that this other tool she uses produces a different report.

I was like "well, does that tool support DoDAF?" No answer. "Have you double checked the content of that report against the DoDAF standard to make sure the content is in line with the standard?" No answer. Then a few minutes later, when I was on another topic, she blurted out "Well, this is what the customer wants." Okaaaaaaay, do what you like.

Then, there is a guy who sits in the front row who apparently doesn't realize my jokes are jokes. I showed the class, as part of an exercise, how I could hide data in the software tool so that it looks like it's gone, but it's really still there. I then suggested "so the day before a big deliverable, you can hide the data, and when your program manager has a heart attack, you can say 'I'll bring the data back if you give me one million dollars". No one laughed. The guy actually wrote down "hide data, one million dollars" in his student guide. When I made a joke saying "One of the mechanisms that could perform this activity is a team of killer robots, if you happen to be designing an army of killer robots". He wrote down "robots", circled it, and made an arrow pointing back to the example diagram.

I wonder what he's going to think when he goes back in 4 weeks to review his notes. I'll no doubt get an email asking about the significance of "robots".

Another guy in the class asked me if my hopkins degree was accredited. I was like "um, yes, hopkins is an accredited school". He then said all sarcastically "Ohhh, I bet everyone is so impressed when you tell them you have a degree from there". For the record, I didn't bring it up, my customer did, when she introduced me. I couldn't help but think dude, do you think people would be impressed if I made a fucking imprint of my engineering ring on your forehead?

Finally, there's Kermit. Yes. Kermit. He runs the lab where I'm teaching. He does not allow food or drink in the class room. How I am expected to talk for hours without having even water to drink, I don't know. My voice was almost gone by the end of today. People are falling asleep because they can't drink caffeine (and because the material is a little boring, not my fault, you try to make the equivalent of differential equations exciting on no caffeine).

The room where I'm teaching is under 24 video surveillance. I got in at 6 am to make sure the class was set up and ready to go with my lap top, which we couldn't test yesterday. Within 5 minutes of me pulling out my tea mug some guy came into the class and tried to confiscate it. Even though I pointed out to him it was empty he insisted I take it out of the class room IMMEDIATELY because, and I quote "people might see it and suspect there is liquid in it, and no liquid is allowed in this classroom". I would have mentioned that the human body is composed primarily of liquid, but he probably wouldn't have gotten the joke.

At one point I suggested to the class that we all act like we'd fallen asleep to see how long it would take security to respond. No one laughed. They looked at me, puzzled. The guy in the front wrote down "sleep - security responds" in his student guide.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day.