I hate it when I can't help
Last Friday, fresh back from the Tech Boot Camp that the state of GA was nice enough to send me to (no sarcasm there - beautiful area, nice facilities, good food, and very friendly folks, I enjoyed myself), I got a patron asking for some help.
It was all very confusing, not least because I was up to my eyeballs trying to catch up after being gone for 4 days, plus we had a bazaar & bake sale on Saturday to help raise funds for summer reading. But he came up looking for someone to help him find a job on the computer. Nothing unusual about that, I do that every day - get them on the computer, point them towards the right site(s), and let them loose.
So then he tells me that he can't use the computer. No problem, again. We have computer classes for adults! And since he doesn't have a job, there's probably not going to be a scheduling conflict. Small blessings, right? I take him over to the desk where we keep the sign-up sheet for the computer classes... and he asks me to write it down for him.
Red flags all over the place at this point. I ask him if he can read and write.
Nope. He wants to know if there's any way I can teach him.
Um, no. Totally aside from the fact that I have a job that does not involve teaching people to read and which keeps me thoroughly busy, there's also the not so minor fact that I am not trained as a literacy instructor. Our library does not offer literacy classes - we tried at one point, the program died a natural death and there are other facilities that do offer those classes. I suggest one of them, he says that won't work. He's already tried it. But he really wants to learn how to use the computer.
You have to be able to read to use the computer. Yes, I know, adaptive technology, programs that will read the screen to them, yadda yadda... but that depends on the person being able to hear and comprehend. This guy was having a lot of comprehension issues, and I suspect that part of it was hearing-related.
After I explained to him that I didn't think that the class would do him a damn bit of good, he gave up. And immediately went over to a patron working on one of the computers and asked him if she could give him a job. I had to explain to him that he could not bother the people in the library, they were trying to do things and he couldn't be allowed to interrupt them.
It was all very frustrating, because I really wanted to help. But what do you do? It's not like I could sit him down in front of the computer and let him search for and fill out applications. It's not like I could find and fill out his forms for him - I sincerely think that he was not able to answer the questions that would be asked. It's not like I could send him to the Dept. of Labor site in town, they wouldn't be able to help him either.
After he'd left, one of my coworkers told me that he was telling the truth about his issues with literacy classes. Way back when we had such things at the library, he had been one of the students. He apparently has some kind of major learning disability (which I'd figured out on my own, talking to him) and just couldn't get it.
It's very disheartening when you want to help, you try to help... and you just can't.
It was all very confusing, not least because I was up to my eyeballs trying to catch up after being gone for 4 days, plus we had a bazaar & bake sale on Saturday to help raise funds for summer reading. But he came up looking for someone to help him find a job on the computer. Nothing unusual about that, I do that every day - get them on the computer, point them towards the right site(s), and let them loose.
So then he tells me that he can't use the computer. No problem, again. We have computer classes for adults! And since he doesn't have a job, there's probably not going to be a scheduling conflict. Small blessings, right? I take him over to the desk where we keep the sign-up sheet for the computer classes... and he asks me to write it down for him.
Red flags all over the place at this point. I ask him if he can read and write.
Nope. He wants to know if there's any way I can teach him.
Um, no. Totally aside from the fact that I have a job that does not involve teaching people to read and which keeps me thoroughly busy, there's also the not so minor fact that I am not trained as a literacy instructor. Our library does not offer literacy classes - we tried at one point, the program died a natural death and there are other facilities that do offer those classes. I suggest one of them, he says that won't work. He's already tried it. But he really wants to learn how to use the computer.
You have to be able to read to use the computer. Yes, I know, adaptive technology, programs that will read the screen to them, yadda yadda... but that depends on the person being able to hear and comprehend. This guy was having a lot of comprehension issues, and I suspect that part of it was hearing-related.
After I explained to him that I didn't think that the class would do him a damn bit of good, he gave up. And immediately went over to a patron working on one of the computers and asked him if she could give him a job. I had to explain to him that he could not bother the people in the library, they were trying to do things and he couldn't be allowed to interrupt them.
It was all very frustrating, because I really wanted to help. But what do you do? It's not like I could sit him down in front of the computer and let him search for and fill out applications. It's not like I could find and fill out his forms for him - I sincerely think that he was not able to answer the questions that would be asked. It's not like I could send him to the Dept. of Labor site in town, they wouldn't be able to help him either.
After he'd left, one of my coworkers told me that he was telling the truth about his issues with literacy classes. Way back when we had such things at the library, he had been one of the students. He apparently has some kind of major learning disability (which I'd figured out on my own, talking to him) and just couldn't get it.
It's very disheartening when you want to help, you try to help... and you just can't.