I spotted a 1 day Ruby conversion course - presented by one of the "movers and shakers" behind Ruby and Rails - over Easter. And in Europe rather than the USA or Japan too. Fabulous - I'm always keen to learn from the masters; time and money spent listening to the originators of Perl, PHP, MySQL and the rest has always been a fabulous investment and it lets me in turn give greater depth to my training courses in England.

So I faxed in my booking (no online booking system - curious!), and checked up on my flights - at a pinch it could be done to get back for my Tuesday course. But then, silence; I got a bit worried yesterday - just two weeks to go when it disappeared off their organiser's website. I phoned them up. "Yes, we have received you booking fax. We should really have got back to you, shouldn't we? Sorry that we didn't. Oh - no - the course isn't full - in fact we've cancelled it ..." Grrrrr!

With niche subjects such as Tcl, Ruby - and even with some of the other we're involved with, it's hard to forecast which dates will book well, and which won't. So I have an element of sympathy for the supplier; indeed, it's very common practise to cancel courses - sometimes as late as just a few days before they're due to run. It's not the first time it's happened to me. But that's only ONE element of sympathy that I have, and I've got TWO elements of disgust at the business practise - it leaves the tutor, who's usually working under contract to such outfits, with no income for the days in question at the last minute, and it leaves the delegates who have scheduled time off work, flights, and hotels with a scramble to find an alternative and perhaps with travel expenses they can't recoup.

One of the things that Lisa and I decided that we would do differently when we set up the Well House Consultants training centre and our program of public courses was a policy that we don't cancel courses - your booking's acknowledged the same day that you send it in, and you then know that the course will run. Yes - a tiny minority of customers have found themselves receiving one on one training in the past, and no doubt that will happen again sometime in the future.

Personally, I'm doubtful that you can learn Ruby in a day, even if you're already familiar with another programming language, and we offer a 2 day Ruby course and feel that's a bare minimum. You'll see dates on the course description page and you can book with confidence - use the form on the description page to book, and make your travel plans. And, yes, I can predict that there will be just a handful of delegates ... and that you'll have a fabulous, interactive course.
(written 2006-04-01 10:14:39)

 R101 - Ruby - Introduction
G502 - Well House Consultants - Business Practise
G301 - Well House Consultants - Booking a Public Courses

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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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