Re training, yep. Our training budget was seriously mismanaged. We got a budget every year, but our development manager was too weak to organise it himself alo

Re training, yep. Our training budget was seriously mismanaged. We got a budget every year, but our development manager was too weak to organise it himself along with his other demands. So it got passed off to a senior team leader to organise. He didn't really have time to organise it properly. We went many years where the budget was not spent, and therefore got shrunk the next year. When we did finally organise training, it was very basic, and the company gave us 1.5 days off to study, which included the time to go to the testing centre (1hr trip each way, 2hr exam). Result: one afternoon off to study. At least I got Java 1.4 Certified Programmer (yay :-/ ). The next training was organised the same, only this time, to avoid us all taking the 1.5 days at the end of the financial year (who'd have thought we'd do that!?!) training was organised in waves of 3 months. At the end of the 3 months, no one had taken an exam! So guess what? Training materials stayed with those people for the next 6 months. That was galling for the rest of us. When I moved department, we had much better managers. They were pro-active is seeking out our training needs, and everyone knew what training or courses they would be doing over the next year. Then corporate HQ stole our training budget to train a team of inexperienced, but geographically cheaper, resources in our jobs. Surprise surprise we got pissed and started leaving. Now I hear that little experiment was an abject failure and they were trying to hire us back as consultants! deep breath sigh Hey, I got paid regularly, travelled a fair bit, learned a TON, and did get to work with some exceptional people. However racism was endemic among senior management, who were all based in ###### (redacted).