…that if something doesn't hold my interest or fire my curiosity, it's just not saved in short or long term memory.
Case in point, my organization is rolling out new enterprise software called Tanium to replace Microsoft's aging but well-known SCCM. This was sprung on us about two months ago with a required day-long online training session that was lead by a guy who was as engaging as watching paint dry. After experiencing cascading technical issues with the lab portion of the training I said fuck it and logged off…yet still somehow got a passing grade and a silly certificate of completion.
Well, a couple weeks ago we got notice from the idiots spearheading this transition (Can we still use that word? I mean I'm not in Florida, so it should be okay, right?) that based on feedback from the first training there would be an additional mandatory in-depth day-long training that required a prerequisite two-hour long online training session before you'd be allowed to attend.
As much as I would've liked to skip the whole fucking thing, I was in no mood for the whining I'd hear from on high if I did that, so I blocked out two hours this morning to complete this prerequisite online training.
And this is where my no-interest-no-retention comes into play. First off, nothing about this new software is going to impact my day-to-day duties in any way, so I already had no reason to fully engage with this to begin with. High-level query and reporting on the state of our network or individual workstations is not something I—or in fact, anyone on my team—does. All that shit falls under the purview of main ITS. The only thing I can possibly imagine having to use this for (and again, the chances that I would actually do this) is for the biannual equipment inventory. And even then, that is a physical, touch-every-machine process so why my organization has chosen to implement this new system—and requiring that everyone from the tech gods to the tech grunts learn it is totally beyond me.
It took me three tries to pass the assessment at the end. Because I had no fucks to give. And to be perfectly honest, after the second try I gave up and cheated. The quiz did not provide immediate feedback for each question missed, but did provide the ability to go back and see the correct answers to the questions once you failed. I took screenshots of those, saved them, and when I took the quiz the final time, I referred to the screenshots and managed to pass.
And I am more convinced than ever that the only reason this piece of crap software was purchased is because the sales presentation involved copious amounts of cocaine and hookers in private hotel rooms.
I am SO ready to retire.