One Too Many Hits In the Head with a Duck

First of all, thank you for all the kind comments. I love comments. It means people are actually reading this and that means that people are aware of the orphanage and what we are trying to do.

Also, for some reason, it cut off my last line of my last post. I fixed that.

I try to break it up a bit and include something to make you laugh every once in awhile. It's depressing to think about what you don't have every day and to wonder if your kids are being fed. MUST... DO.... FUNDRAISERS..... but back to something funny.

Today I remembered a weird experience from a few years back at work. I was trying to train a replacement person on several processes that were fairly complicated. I'd written out pages and pages of explanation with step by step instructions for everything. Management had identified the person they felt should take over these items and I began the process of training this person. Let's call him, Ben, shall we?

After several days of going through everything step by step and reviewing and reviewing and training and retraining.... it became apparent that Ben wasn't picking up much. OK, he wasn't getting anything. It was like every review was a brand new discussion that didn't relate to anything we'd discussed previously. While living that way may make every day seem like a new adventure, it's a lousy skill to have in someone you're supposed to be training. I was beginning to suspect that Ben was not the sharpest cheese in the fridge, if you know what I mean.

I went to the manager that had selected BennyBoy for the job. I said, 'You know, I've spent about 30 hours with Ben on these first items and he's just not getting it. He's asking the same questions day after day. He isn't retaining things and I don't think he understands the concepts of the business."

She looked at me, sighed, and said,

'You know, I just don't think he's been the same since he was hit in the head with that duck."

I waited for the punchline. There wasn't one. She wasn't kidding.

"I'm sorry... did you say 'hit in the head with a DUCK'??"

"Oh," she said, "you haven't heard this?"

"No... I'm QUITE certain I'd remember a story involving someone being struck in the cranium with a waterfowl. Please, go on."

Apparently, several months prior BennyBoy was driving on a backroad on his way to work one day. He had the window down and was enjoying the morning breeze. Suddenly, a full grown duck flew in the driver's side window and smacked into the side of his head.

I'll let that visual image soak in for a minute......

He had to pull over to get the duck out of the vehicle. And apparently he got some sort of "duck gunk" in his eye that caused an infection and apparently that led to other things (which may possibly include the inability to retain information after you've had it explained to you twenty times, based on what this boss was saying.)

So, you tell me... which is the best part of this story? a) the fact that he was hit in the head by a duck or b) the fact that several months after the fact, his boss was still using that to "explain his poor performance".

Personally, I just like to say, "Sounds like one too many hits in the head with a duck" every once in awhile. It amuses me. Even if I'm the only one around.