Mandatory Training Day

Like most people who work for a large organisation I have to attend something called Mandatory Training.
It takes up a whole week day and will include subjects such as Fire Training, Manual Lifting and Handling, Human Rights, Data Protection, Health & Safety et al et blah et groan etc.
A selection of dates are usually given to us early in the year and we quickly plan ahead so that we are unavailable.
I know this may possibly shatter your image of me as a dedicated NHS employee, but that can't be helped, it's not my favourite day in the year and I might as well be honest.
Even changing the name to Corporate Catch Up Day hasn't fooled me.
I was given an early December date back in January and despite my protests that I knew for sure that on that exact day I would, with absolute certainty, be doing the developmental assessments on the babies born in May in the morning and be visiting the babies born at the end of November in the afternoon, I was informed I had to be there.
Somehow the date has loomed like a very big blot in my consciousness ever since.
None of the drama of  resuscitation training in store, that's done on a separate day but the last time I did Manual Lifting and Handling Training we did drive the hapless instructor rapidly towards a nervous breakdown, the tricky scenario to be sorted was as follows,
"The weekly consignment of fifty large boxes of toilet rolls have been delivered to the wrong door of the hospital, how would you resolve this problem safely?"
We split up into small groups with a flip chart and big coloured pens and, after debating the reasons why a tiny cottage hospital was using so many toilet rolls and that perhaps the menus needed to be revised, we settled on an excellent solution which we bullet pointed on our flip chart.
In essence, we'd contact the delivery company and advise them of the error of their ways requesting that they return forthwith and deliver the toilet rolls to the correct door. If it rained in the meantime and the toilet rolls got wet we would not be paying the bill and trusted that the company would feel suitably riven with conscience over all the patients now severely compromised by the lack of toilet tissue.
We quite liked this robust approach which seemed commensurate with our role as Band Six employees (via Agenda for Change banding has replaced grading ) but apparently it was the wrong answer and we expressed our collective dismay that the correct one just hadn't occurred to us.
We were supposed to divide the boxes down into liftable sized packages, keep our backs straight, bend at the knees to pick them up and then, holding them at waist level and close to the body, walk them around to the correct door. If there were enough staff available we could set up a line and pass them one to another for increased efficiency.
I can't wait for this year.