No? Why not? Those of you who have taken a Lotus training course from a Lotus Authorized Education Center (LAEC) have paid a dollar a minute (or more) to sit down and have an instructor lecture to you about Lotus technologies. And at least this article is in a format you can refer to later.

At $425 a day (suggested retail price) for the standard Lotus education class taught by an LAEC, I don't need to tell you that this training program is expensive. And if you further break the cost down, realizing that most classes start at 9 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m. (yeah, right, but let's play Devil's Advocate), then you realize that $425 buys you 480 minutes of training. But wait, we need to take out an hour for lunch and 30 more minutes for a morning and afternoon break. That's a total of 90 minutes subtracted from 480 for a maximum of 390 minutes of training a day.

That's over a dollar a minute! Sure, some of us can earn that much or more every minute from our companies or clients by applying some of the great Lotus technology that we learn, but it should not cause us to disregard the fact that we're spending $1.09 every minute we sit in a classroom.

Of course, Lotus training is cheaper than phone sex (so I've heard), but that doesn't mean you should let yourself get screwed. Lotus training courses have a lot to offer, but you need to take responsibility for getting the most out of them. I'll tell you how below. Whether or not you are paying for the class yourself, I think you should think of the money for the class as coming out of your own pocket.

My philosophy of training
Here today, for less than a dollar a minute (for free, actually), I'm going to share with you my philosophy of Lotus training. First, here are the two thoughts that form the basis of my training philosophy:

Get everything you can from (your) company short of stealing. -- Skydano, My Former Boss

Spend the company's money like you would your own. -- My Dad

Keeping both of these somewhat opposite thoughts in my brain at once has helped me to obtain increased job satisfaction and an ever-rising level of success in my career.