Justifying failure

While chatting to some staff at a supermarket today about the possibility of putting up a business card on a notice board, one of the staff came over and started to explain how she was feeling about her experience of learning to drive.  Her story went along the lines of using two driving instructors, one indy and one from a national school, and yet she had failed twice.  The indy had been charging her £25/hr.  I listened politely, asked a few questions and then left her a card.  Who knows if I’ll hear from her.  But listening to her story and the sound of resentment and disappointment in her voice left me feeling quite sad for her.  There she is, a young lass of about 18 I would guess, I can’t imagine she would be on much more than £7-8 per hour in that supermarket, and it was clear to hear (if you chose to), that she was feeling quite bitter from her experience. 

It connected with me for two other reasons.  The national driving school she had invested in for her training was the school I had a very low opinion of after investing nearly £4000 of my own money to become qualified.  The indy instructor she mentioned had come to my notice about a year earlier.  A learner of mine told me that she had a discussion with a friend of hers who was at that time learning with this instructor.  The discussion was about the use of mirrors when driving.  My learners friend explained that her instructor had told her to look at the mirror every 5 seconds on the test, just so the examiner could see.  Now I appreciate that you have to be very careful with these stories, but if you re-read who is saying what to whom in the above, you will notice that the information being fed back to me was as a result of two learners discussing their experience with two instructors.  This is the same instructor who was charging the supermarket lass £25/hour, and she failed.

Now I’m more than aware that you can’t jump to conclusions after listening to one or two people, you must always beware how things get twisted but I had heard what this lass had to say, and I could see that the experience has affected her greatly.  I posted up tonight on my Facebook a reference to this story, and I stand by that post.... you can view it if you like dated 7.1.12

Within an hour of the post, 2 instructors took it upon themselves to start questioning my pass rates to make such a comment, they started questioning my integrity in the business and one even suggested it is the comment of someone who has just come into the industry.  I have removed the comments as I do not ask any ADI to follow my Facebook page, and I do not invite them to post up their opinions on my business page – if they don’t like to hear the views of a professional who is passionate about providing quality training then they should be more selective who they choose to ‘follow’.  It says more about them and their approach.  You hold a mirror to your own beliefs, expectations and standards by what you express towards others, and this is a classic example.  Those 2 instructors are more than willing to question my integrity and professionalism than reflect on what is being suggested.  One of them directly queried what my pass rate is..... if she perhaps took the trouble to look at my blog here, or my website she would very quickly discover what my pass rate is.  And for the record, I literally cannot recall the last fail I had, I would need to look it up on my computer.  So that would perhaps give her some indication of the standard I am running at.  But in case they read this entry, please feel free to comment about a blog I write on the relevant blog..... not on a Facebook page.   I'm genuinely interested in debate and feedback.

Those 2 instructors choose to run their business the way they do.... it is their choice, and they have to live with the consequences.   No matter how much I personally agree/disagree with the way an instructor went about their business, I would never post up on their business network pages my thoughts on their approach.  But how sad it is that within the hour, 2 female instructors, on a Saturday evening have nothing better to do than pronounce their opinions on other peoples business pages.

A national average pass rate of just under 50% is appalling, I have stated before in other articles, we should all collectively hang our heads in shame at that result.  But I will sleep soundly tonight knowing my personal first time pass rate is over 90%.  When you hear driving instructors being so quick to defend failure and justify it to themselves, then it makes it very apparent why there is so much failure around.