Very well hidden talents

It turns out that in amongst all the sensible qualifications we possess, there are usually some less useful ones.

And some downright weird ones.

I’ve been updating my CV recently – It’s important to be able to adequately show a prospective employer my decades of chronic underachievement in a neat chronological list – and it turns out some of the things I’ve got certificates for are rather out of date, irrelevant, or just plain weird.

I’m grateful for the First Aid course I went on, as it’s always useful to know what to do if someone goes into labour. It was good that I knew roughly what to do when a colleague attempted to cut his finger off with a jigsaw, even if the shaking like a leaf and having a quivery voice when I rang for an ambulance weren’t part of the training. Happy days.

Proper O and A Level subjects aside, the fading, tatty, blue folder of my training history reveals some less helpful areas of expertise. I can vaguely recall bits of the “IBM MVS Operations Techniques”, and I clearly can’t go wrong with informing the fascinated HR person at my next potential employer that I’m fully trained on the Pitney Bowes 3100 Dual Webb Inserter – as a key operator, no less. You can high-five me later.

The B.A.G.A. Gymnastics Awards (4 and 3!) from the 70s are potentially useful, but mainly only if I intend to specialise in picking up lost items up from behind a filing cabinet without moving it.

I’ve got a lovely certificate showing that I exhibited “continuous improvement” in 1990, and they even spelt my name right too. That would appear to be the only year in which that happened though.

Then there’s the software training on Excel (v4.0), Word (v2.0) and the one that will always guarantee my immediate employment and a fat pay packet, Wordstar 6.

I’m a qualified forklift truck operator, and I’ve even got a card with my photo on to prove it, even if the version of me staring back has more hair and a weird pair of turn-of-the-century fashion glasses on.

I “successfully attended” a Fire Risk Assessment course, which is probably a good thing to have a certificate for, as I’m assuming they don’t give them out for unsuccessful attendance. Well... maybe they do, but how would you know?

The absolute essentials from my earliest years are present and correct, even if the certificates are looking a bit yellowy with age (I know how they feel); The Royal Society For The Prevention Of Accidents National Cycling Proficiency one is dated 27th May 1977, meaning I’ve been OK for bicycling in a safe manner for nearly 37 years, and the 10m swimming one means I have been proven capable of getting from one side of a pool to the other without drowning. Even if I did hold my breath.

And finally, I am a trained Barista.

When do I start?

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column in the North West Evening Mail on the 28th of February 2014. You can view the version used by the paper here The only changes made by them were to add the word 'revealed' to the end of the title, and alter the format of the date from 1977.

This was an enjoyable one to write, and was genuinely triggered by me updating my CV, whilst seriously considering applying for a job. I chickened out in the end.

An update on a couple of previous columns: The Man Cave is still being decorated (after all, what's the rush? It needs to be done properly.) and my fingernails are now so long, I actually need to trim them, but never having done it before, I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. Weird, huh?

(Another home made compilation CD on the go tonight, this one featuring Roger Taylor 12" versions, Marillion and some mash-ups.)

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