I mean, really, God works in mysterious ways

A while ago I posted about meeting with people from a consultancy who are bidding for training programmes for the civil service. Gender sensitivity training, ahem, that is.

Anyhow, to my uttttttmost surprise, they/we got two out of the five training programmes on offer. One is two one-day workshops for staff of the Social Welfare Department, the other is for Liason Officers of the Home Affairs Department.

Gender-related training, they are called. How much more non-descript can you get. Better know as gender-sensitivity training elsewhere (not much better, obviously). I've already done the two one-day workshops last week and tomorrow is the final half-day workshop for Liason Officers.

I wasn't holding my breath before they started. I really just wanted to do them for the money. They pay me pretty well for the amount of work involved, but it's obvious that for them that they consider me a bargain. They actually volunteered to pay me more than I asked for.

I didn't have high hopes as to what these workshops could achieve, or how much I would not hate them, or how much the participants would not hate them either. Turns out most involved seemed to have had a pretty okay time, and that is judging by the questionnaires they filled in after the thing was over. It was a nine to five thing (I only had to work for 3 hours though, the rest I just sat there as prop), but not really that exhausting.

But the most unexpected thing is that I got on quite well with the other trainer. She is very different from me in every way I can think of. But somehow we got on quite well. She is in her mid forties, I would guess, seemingly very conservative, but very enterprising, very career oriented, very assertive and confident. She said everyone thinks she is a school teacher, judging by the way she acts and speaks and looks. I think we have this rare thing called trust and respect between us, for some reasons. I barely know her, but I kinda like her.