Some stories of educational achievement soar into the heavens. Of individuals who through hard work and toil overcame the challenges in their life to achieve. Certainly, at ADL we’ve seen and helped many individuals achieve their dreams through completing a course which helped them get a place at university or begin a new career.
This, however, is a humbler story. Of a little vacuum cleaner that broke and the power of education and learning to fix it
There was a hoover named Henry. There are many vacuum cleaners named Henry probably because the manufacturer stuck the name on them. This may be because they want people to think of a particular type of vacuum cleaner as a Henry and protect themselves from trademark erosion like what happened to Hoover. Which in the UK is a generic word for vacuum cleaner and thus is a fascinating and yet completely unrelated topic in its own right.
This particular hoover named Henry lived at ADL Towers where it had the important role of keeping the office clean. Particularly from Boris the French Bulldog and Mascot’s fur whenever it happened to be “bring your pet to work day” (1).
The Henry Incident
One day however disaster struck as the plug on the wire was torn off after it became stuck under a door frame while being put away one day. It was of course being put away properly and not at all the result of a hurried individual trying to force it round the door improperly. The point is the plug was torn off and along with the wire.
Horror ensured – without a plug Henry couldn’t be used. He was a dead Hoover. It had ceased to be, rested in peace, kicked the bucket bit the dust and so forth. Gloomily the unfortunate-and-completely-innocent in all of this ADL staffer looked into what it would cost to replace the Hoover. A replacement would easily cost over a hundred pounds. Repairs could cost as much as fifty.
But then the staffer had an idea. What if they just, learned to replace the plug themselves? It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
And so, the staff member did a little home learning themselves. They studied the layout of a UK plug and how one was to be wired and learned how to strip a wire using tools they already had at home. For a moment, they were puzzled when they found that Henry had only two wires despite having a typical 3 prong UK plug but this too could be overcome.
They learned and they worked and when Henry was plugged in and came to life one more the Staff Member was both relieved and elated. They’d learned a new skill, saved themselves a wodge of cash and best of all got away with the whole thing scot-free. (2)
Education is for Everything
Typically when we think about distance education it is again filled with grand ideas about new jobs and shiny degrees. But education is about the little things too, the practical day to day skills that can save us so much money and grief to resolve. Fixing small appliances is one such little thing.
Many devices can, with a little effort be repaired when they are damaged. More too will be as Governments legislate to combat excessive amounts of landfill waste by mandating a right to repair broken appliances.
ADL courses such as Small Appliances Machine and Equipment Repair address smaller, more practical skills that have a real day to day usefulness about them. Many of our other short courses are ideally positioned to help teach you a skill or ability you need to overcome a particular challenge you’re facing in life.
Why not give our catalogue of new and established courses a look today and see what you could learn?
(1) This is referred to as either Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Boris is a busy boy.
(2) Until they wrote about their experiences in a blog post.
