I get sent on loads of courses like this and they vary from really interesting and useful to ones where you want to stab your eyes out with boredom.

But even if the course is great, I always find that within a very short space of time I've forgotten all about it if it's for a skill I don't often need to use.

The only useful one I went on recently was on Dealing With Extreme Behaviour, which has really helped me in my regular dealings with the Complainant from Hell and other assorted nutters. But that's only because I need to use the skills virtually every day I'm in the office.

That is a good point about forgetting the skills if you don't use them regularly, essexjan. Obviously the value of the course would greatly depend on the instructor, but I'm not sure I have any way of determining how good he is in advance, as this is the first time these courses have been offered.

Eh, why not?

You only live once.

If it's useful, it's useful. If it's not, it's not.

Try one and see what you think.

My office provides a certain amount of training for each employee, but I haven't signed up for any of these personal development courses because they all sound so boring. And all of the interesting-sounding ones don't apply to my job description, so I wouldn't be allowed to attend them.

Would I really rather spend all day listening to a boring lecture than spend all day joking at my desk with my coworkers?

I did a 'conflict management' one once, and it was a complete waste of time. On the other hand, I won the stupid role-playing thing with the imaginary trucks - so that was good.

Just one data point.

I've done a few of these and, pretty much without exception, found them boring and containing nothing that I didn't know already.