Training days

Having worked in the field many years ago, I enjoyed Adrian Furnham's typology of trainers ("Prepare to meet your trainer", August).

My first training job involved working for a training manager in local government who intensely disliked women, especially if they had a full complement of brain cells.

He had carefully designed his end-of-course "happy sheets" with such boxes to tick as "the trainer was good/very good/outstanding". Consequently, I thought my first course would be rated highly, until I discovered he had changed that question for me to read "the trainer was mediocre/below average/poor". Incidentally, one delegate said, "I did not like the trainer's attitude": I've often wondered what they meant, as a bad attitude may have been a key factor in my failure as a trainer and subsequent career as an academic.

Mary Brown, Department of management, Aberdeen Business School, The Robert Gordon University.