Apparently I’m a middle class git. Let me explain….
In my job with the local authority I sometimes do unannounced visits on various training courses which are being delivered by subcontractors. Actually I quite like doing these visits as it gets me out of the office and brings a little connection with the ‘real world’.
It would be easy for me to blend into the background with my clipboard, take notes and generally be semi invisible. Instead I like to get a sense of what’s really going on and I like to chat at break-time to the participants and hear what they have to say.
From time to time I get to join in with some of the exercises and recently I found myself in an introductory session with a small number of participants, so the trainer asked if I’d like to join in, which I gladly did. The exercise was about introducing yourself (name etc) and then present three facts about yourself but only TWO are completely true. These were mine with their discussions as to which was true and false:
- I have had a book published (they thought this was feasible because “well he’s one of those middle class gits and probably the kind of thing he would do”).
- Cycled around East Africa (they thought this was impossible and therefore the false statement.
- I have run a marathon (they all thought this was plausible and one said “he looks like a runner, all thin and the like”).
When I explained that I’d never had a book published, they were all surprised. Then they had to accept that I had run a marathon or cycled around East Africa. They thought the marathon was very do-able because lots of people do this kind of thing nowadays. As for cycling in East Africa, they were almost in disbelief and couldn’t relate to this at all, let alone imagining what it would be like.
What never seemed to change was the middle class git label! I thought it was quite funny.
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