Yeah that's my experience too, which is why I asked. As you say, sending a secretary to an 'advanced Excel' course is common enough, but for real tech topics, t

Yeah that's my experience too, which is why I asked. As you say, sending a secretary to an 'advanced Excel' course is common enough, but for real tech topics, there isn't anything you can really teach in a few days that you can't learn yourself from a book and some websites in the same time. And getting some budget for going to a conference a few isn't usually too hard, but it's still completely self-directed learning. I'm not complaining, I was just wondering what is 'normal'.