... was a question thrown to me by the VP/GM at a company dinner earlier today, after he heard that I was gonna do an Advanced Diploma in Counselling when he raised the question whether we celebrate Christmas and make any new year resolutions.

In reply, I mentioned that there's no motivation, however, if I wanted to switch to a career in professional counselling, I would be able to do so.

Most companies provide you enough training to do your job, if they even provide you any training. I guess most companies just want to hire people that they know can do the job, without additional expense. While on the taxi back, I had given it some thought. Come to think of it, after my first job, at which I stayed 6 years and was given plenty of training unrelated to my job, I haven't worked at any companies that were willing to provide its employees training outside the employees' scope of work. Come to think of it, that makes business sense, since those company would be footing additional expenses to give training that wouldn't be used anyway.

Having come to realize that I'm always joining companies that don't provide additional training beyond the scope of work I'm employed in, I've sent myself for training in a lot of stuff. Over the years, I've sent myself for training in:

  • how to do proper IT networking and got CCNA
  • how to be a great system administrator in Windows, and got MCSE
  • how to do proper system administration in Solaris, and got SCSA
  • the basics of Java development and got SCJP
  • how to do proper project management
  • how to play guitar
  • how to write articles / books and I wrote 2 articles that turned up in printed magazines (man, that was exhausting!)
  • teaching myself software development in several languages, exploring ways to develop software better.
I wonder how many companies out there gives their employees additional training beyond and outside their scope of work.