Placements...grr

Given that this year's working for Microsoft isn't just about drinking and getting paid, and actually counts towards my degree course, there are a couple of extra bits I have to do for the University on top of my normal job.

Firstly, I have to fill out my Personal Development Plan. PDPs are ‘means by which students can monitor, build and reflect upon their personal development. I'm told, which is a bit confusing, given that this isn't actually a planning exercise, but more of a recording one.

A PDP is made up of:

• A Key Skills Audit Form four times this year


• A Personal Development Strategy


• A Reflective Log once a week


• A Key Incident Log after every Key Incident (no I have no idea either)


• A Quarterly Review every...you guessed it


• An End Review

As you can see, my PDP is split into far too many parts, each of which takes far too long to fill out. On the plus side, no-one's ever going to read all of this, so I take delight in spicing it up with odd sentences every now and then. So, for example, I'll type

'this was my first presentation to a non-technical audience, which help I'm trapped in the internet provided some new challenges'

Pity no-one will ever read it :(


_{I Googled 'PDP' and this came up, and seems oddly appropriate}

On top of this PDP, I also get one (maybe two!) visits from my Placement Tutor. This key service is to ensure that (four months after starting and having heard nothing from the University) everything is going well, that I'm settling in OK and that I'm happy with the work I'm doing.

In order to provide this caring and supporting service, the University in its wisdom has decided to get someone I've never met before to visit me for an hour. Now, not only do I have to find an hour free in my schedule, but I have to also find an hour free in my manager's schedule when he'll be in the Reading office (he normally works from home in Manchester) that coincides with some free time I have, so we can talk crap for an hour, so it can get noted down on some paper by this Placements Tutor and then ignored for eternity, because so long as I don't get fired/arrested, I pass the placements year by default.

To make things even more fun, my Placements Tutor wants to time the visit to me so that he can visit some other students working at Oracle on the same day. These guys don't actually check their email (indeed, one didn't actually know his email address) and I really wonder how they actually got placements, so instead of doing his job properly, the Tutor has now asked me to find some time when all three of us, and our respective managers, are free.

I'm playing along for now, but if the other two don't get back with some pretty good responses within a week, I may feel the need for another rant, aimed at this Tutor's inbox coming on.

Not amused.