Edward J. Pluchar - The Blogsplitter

This has been a very simple, useful tool for me.  Let me explain one of the ways this is so.

Where I work, there’s an adult with autism who comes in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  He spends most of his day doing computer and desk work, which he is both inclined to do and remarkably skilled at.  Someone, wanting to diversify his work experience, decided he should also work with the maintenance department, work which he is happy to decline.

For my part, I’m mother-lovin’ busy.  It can be difficult to find the patience needed to teach someone how to vacuum when there are 6-7 things hanging over my head.  Patient I was, however, and this young man has become a proficient vacuumer.

While I can now set him up to work alone, I still have to be present so that he can report to me.  This appointment is sometimes easy to forget.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate the importance of the program, but it’s the 6-7 other things that occupy my mind.

Enter Google Calendar.  I set up appointments to be ready for our vacuumer on a continual basis for every Mon., Wed., and Fri. from here to Kingdom Come.  Not only that, but the beauty part is that I also set up e-mail reminders for myself, timed to arrive in my inbox when I check my e-mail first thing in the morning on those three days.

The reminder function is also terrific for one-time events which are planned more than a few weeks in advance.  I think my mental calendar stretches 3-4 weeks, then things can get foggy.  But the e-mail reminders keep my mental calendar fresh.

That’s only the reminder function.  You can also synchronize your Google Calendar with another Gmail user (in my case, Marcy), so that events entered by one user will appear on the calendars of both users.  Way better than a written calendar, in my opinion.

Do you use Google Calendar?  What functions do you find most useful?

I’m puzzled.

I have long accepted that women are better communicators, in general, than men.  There always seemed to be a consensus, actually.  Wherever you looked, men were willing to concede the honor, and women were confidently accepting it.

I work in a place dominated, in population and hierarchy, by women.  One might think, then, that communication is a foundational asset for our organization, from which we soar to astounding heights!

No.

Maybe it’s a minority thing.  I have enjoyed fairly effective communication with most of the men here, at least the ones I need to communicate with.

Or it could be a gender barrier.  Maybe the communication I receive IS clear and complete, from one woman to another.  Somehow my maleness interrupts the communication.  But come on - who really thinks it’s that?

Here is an example, from an e-mail correspondence, translated into dialogue:

Co-worker:  Classroom A will be using the training conference room at 10am.  (Note:  It is worth saying that I’m glad I was informed, because this is not always the case).

Me:  Just to be clear, is this the room where we hold the all-staff meetings?  (There are a few large conference rooms, and more than one is used for training).

Co-worker:  The large one…

Her last response is verbatim and punctuatim.

I take some of the blame here, because I once pitched the idea of naming the rooms for the sake of clarity, and haven’t followed up.  Still, it’s her final response which suggests that names would not clear up the confusion.

Sigh.

In other news, you should see renewed activity on www.plucharbabyblog.com for the next several months.

My job description here at SARA is set to change, from administering grants and coordinating home repair projects to homebuyer education and directing what’s called the Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS).

With the new job comes the need for education.  I like education.  I like learning.

But nonprofit education…government sponsored or directed training…tends to be awful.  And not at all educational.

The “pre-service orientation” that led up to my term as an AmeriCorps VISTA was, without qualification, the worst week of programming in my life.

Homebuyer education entails an 8 hour class usually taught to groups of 6-12 people, going over nearly every imaginable step in the process of buying and maintaining a home.  I’d be the teacher, the homebuyer educator.  As the teacher I would reap the benefits of actually having been through that process myself.

To adjust this point to HUD’s terminology, I would be training people to work through the home buying process.  Thus, I have to attend a “train the trainer” seminar, where we will work through hands-on activities and improve our presentations through the most effective means of…

What this all means is that we’ll arrive in a generic hotel ballroom, do corny icebreakers (which aren’t so bad) and talk a little bit about the content of the homebuyer class, new tools for teaching…all leading to the grand exercise, getting up in front of a group, or the whole class, and working through one’s presentation.

I hate this stuff.  I hate pretending to teach a class composed of other people who also will be teaching the class, because I can’t or won’t go full-throttle into my routine, but then as a result the instructor comes over and says, “Now, that’s alright, but you really want to be enthusiastic about improving your credit score!” or “Don’t forget to ask if anyone has questions.”  Because the instructor must have something to say about everyone’s routine.

Then I’ll come back to SARA and my enthusiasm will be scorched by the stuttering and incomplete training I received.