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Warning:  This is fairly specific to software engineering and I reckon you should only read this if you are very bored.

Folks, I was just hoping for some advice on what the law requires of employers with regard to training their staff, if there is any at all.

In July 2007 I got a job with a software company after an interview which consisted of the usual technical and personal questions.  At this stage I was completely honest about the amount of exposure I'd had to Java programming, and made it clear that were I to be offered the job that I wouldn't be at guru level straight away.

Since I've started I've had formal training at all and there's been some negative feedback on my performance.  It's coming up to end of year review time again and to be honest I hate the thought of it.  Previous comments in the more informal midyear review have said that I've been incapable of completing tasks that shouldn't have been beyond what was expected from a level 1 engineer, even though I have my doubts about this.  To any of you that work in this area, one of the main things I had problems with was classpath issues when trying to deploy and run stuff.  At University, which was my only previous experience of Java, I had never heard the word classpath.

Another point that was raised was that it was "disappointing" how many times I needed things explained to me.  Surely explaining things to people is almost fully a one-way process.  I don't misunderstand things on purpose and with the nature of this work there's always things that come up after tasks have been started.

I did enquire some months back about the possibility of getting some training but was told there was no money in the budget for this.

I tried to call down today to speak to Citizen's Advice about this but they operate on an appointment only basis on Mondays and Tuesdays.  I intend to call back on Wednesday.

I'm hopefully going to hand in my notice from this job early in the new year anyway so I suppose in a sense this isn't do or die but I would still like to challenge it if there's anything that's not done properly.

Thanks in advance for any help - I know that's a pretty long read.

Lads, I don't post on here very often but I'd appreciate some advice on this!

I'm 26 now and I've never even been away to the States for a summer or anything like that!  I know you need a passport to go abroad and that's about it.

I was thinking of holidaying in the States for maybe a month or so, before heading on round to Australia.  Or maybe, head out to the States and work there for a while first and then go to Australia.

The main questions I would have would be:

How do you go about being allowed to work in the States and/or Australia? 

Is January (ish) any better or worse a time to be going to the States in light of everything that's going on at the minute?

What do you do about money, do you just lift from an ATM and take that cash withdrawal charge that they seem to give you?

As I said, I really have no clue around this stuff at all - nothing is too basic to be telling me!

Thanks in advance!

Hi lads.

Are any of you involved in juvenile hurling coaching in your clubs or local schools?

I'm just wondering what structures are in place in these places as I'm looking to improve the conditions and the standards in my local club.

Any of you that are involved, what age do you start coaching kids at?  

I've been taking a group of Primary School kids recently (P6/7) and I've noticed that already they've started to pick up a few bad habits - things like not knowing which hand should be at the top of the stick, which hand to take the ball in when you lift it, what shape the stick should be when you're lifting (toe facing in or out) etc.  

The youngest we coach in our club at the minute is Under 8, do any of you go below this and have training for Under 6s, as I've started to think that this definitely isn't too early for kids to be learning the basic skills.

Also, what approach do you take when coaching?  I assume you start with the basic skills, and then at what stage do you introduce defending as that usually scares the bejaysus out of them?  How do you handle it if a kid decides to do his/her own thing and won't be told, for example, what shape the stick should be when you're lifting the ball?

Thanks in advance.