I was a little cranky at work yesterday, a fact that was crystal clear to all my underlings. Most of them thought carefully about what their questions were and were kind enough to present them to me in the form of actual questions. (Even when I’m not cranky, someone coming up and interrupting me with some free-associational rap that may or may not have some request for info subliminally embedded in it tends to make me cranky. Fear my “What’s the question here?”!)
So, the afternoon is wearing (sic) on. I had a set of proofs going to a test-solver. The person who had been dealing with this told me there were two pages that needed to be rerun. I asked whether this would be done by the end of the day and got a big fat “I don’t know,” so I held off on putting together the overnight UPS package, but finally went ahead and filled out the forms, made a copy of the slip for myself, walked the shipper copy down to accounting, and put the envelope on the 6:00 pick-up pile. An hour or so later, the person who’d told me there would be two pages to rerun came and reported that they’d been done – had I done the package yet? “Yes,” I replied, “so go make copies of those pages, retrieve the envelope, open it, stick in the pages, and reseal it.”
Fairly clear, no?
Five minutes later he’s back, holding the envelope, sealed, and with a dazed look on his face. “What do you want me to do?” “Open the envelope,” I said, suiting actions to words. “Stick in the pages” (ditto), “and tape it shut.” At which point I handed the package back to him, since I don’t keep the tape gun on my desk.
You know, I just saw the SpongeBob Squarepants episode where SB was trying to teach Patrick how to open a jar.
Put your hand on the lid…no, the lid…the lid, Patrick…the lid…the lid (repeat for the average 3-y-o’s attention span)
I sympathize with your frustration, but I actually understand where your employee is coming from. A series of verbal instructions (do step A, then step B, step C, and finally step D) goes in one ear and out the other, no matter how much I try to concentrate, and no matter how simple they are, *especially *if I’m the least bit sleepy. My audial memory is just shite, and that could be his problem, too.
My boss has been training me in setting up new b2b jobs on our Unix box. None of it is complicated, but can be quite a series of steps. If the instructions are written down, I can remember them very quickly and not even need my notes after the first few times (even as little as one time, depending on complexity). Tell me those same instructions verbally, and you’ll have to hand me along one step at a time.
So you might ask him if that’s his problem, or if it’s something else. If it’s that, you might find it easier to communicate with him another way. (Or at least suggest he take notes when you give him instructions.)
Deadly Accurate – possibly, and when I’m giving complex instructions to this guy, that’s what we do. This, however, was a matter of making sure a couple of pages (which he was holding in his hand) got into an envelope (which he knew the whereabouts of). Honest question – if it were you, even if you didn’t remember exactly what I said, wouldn’t you be able to figure out the whole “open envelope, insert, reseal” thing on your own without bothering your boss again?
I would hope so, and visual cues certainly help me to remember. But when I’m sleepy, I can seem really dense. (I might be unintentionally exaggerating the difficulty because I only had an hour and a half of sleep last night, so even remembering my name is a chore this morning.) It’s a weird dichotomy with my eidetic memory, because I can often tell you what general page number and part of a page something is on (i.e. bottom of the left column, second paragraph) after little more than a glance, even now on so little sleep. Yet, if you gave me a series of verbal instructions that basically boiled down to “get your hot water out of the microwave and make a drink with it,” (thanks for reminding me, btw) I might give you the blank stare o’ doom and come back with a witty, “Huh?”
Don’t forget the “I’m gonna get in trouble” factor.
You have instructed an employee to open an already-sealed envelope. Don’t ask me why, but to many people opening sealed envelopes is on par with busting into a bank vault or opening their parents’ bedroom door to see why daddy and mommy are making those grunting noises. You simply don’t do it without explicit permission, covering your ass all the way.
Holy fucking shit…if you have this disability and you know it about yourself, keep a damned piece of paper and a pencil with you at all times, for crying out loud. That way, as someone tells you something, you can take the initiative and, you know, write the shit down instead of somehow making it the other person’s job to do this for you.
Calm down please, crazyjoe. DeadlyAccurate wasn’t complaining, just pointing out a possibility. Even you want to go off on someone, this isn’t the forum for it. Instead, try the sunny locale in the Pit.
Although I could remember the simple task that twickster describes, I do have a problem with remembering a sequence of instructions, also. I’m very, very lucky to be able to take shorthand - it’s absolutely necessary in my job.
Although, in my defense, instructions from my boss are along these lines: