![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This icon is me from two hours ago.
I am, and always have been, in need of specialists. Generalists are well and good, but when it comes down to it, I'm better off with personal attention and someone who can roll with an individual and tailor to fit.
As of today, I think I'm done with a generalist working with me, and the only way I could be happier about it is if I got a ride back to the city instead of having to take the bus. I'm still really pleased with how this morning turned out; yes, I was more than a little rude to my caseworker and I know it, and no, I'm not going to apologize for it. Not today, at least. Ask me in a week when I'm not irritated about talking to someone who kept parroting me to the point where I asked if we were in an Aaron Sorkin movie.
It's always been a problem for me when I've gotten general help instead of special attention - it's made worse when I know people aren't in a position to give help to individuals as they need it, but try anyway, which makes it even more rank. I've been in school programs designed to help people with needs and diagnoses across multiple spectrums that I'm certain were helpful, but for me, were pretty much useless because I needed help in areas they weren't providing. Back in high school, I didn't get much use out of a free period in the middle of the day, not when there were too many loud people to concentrate on my homework. Moreover, the classes I needed help with weren't included in the basic framework of the program because they were too advanced to be covered by the general material.
There have been times I've benefited from these programs. The first example that comes to mind is being able to schedule a test to take it outside of the regular class period so I could go to a concert that night instead. The second is knowing the office staff well enough to get hired for a secretarial position without having to interview for it. And the third is a job placement program in high school that took care of much of the fuss involved in finding open positions around town.
The program I was going to in New Jersey - and now no longer, I hope - provides support and programs across the board for a large number of groups, including recent graduates who are looking for work. However, with nineteen hours a week for that program, and over twenty clients, it works out to less than an hour per client. I've no way of knowing how much work gets taken home and completed off-site; with the sort of program I had with my caseworker, most of that could have been done without a four-hour trip into New Jersey and back and left her to sip coffee quietly for an hour while we sent e-mails back and forth. It's quite probable I should have suggested that several weeks ago.
My program was supposed to help me figure out how to make cover letters shine, edit my resume, find places to look for jobs online, and work on my interview skills. Forget the fact that following the number of places to look for library-based jobs online is akin to drinking from a fire hydrant and I'm doing my best to tamper that down to a garden hose. To her credit, my caseworker did help me with some cover letters and draft position statements for my resume, and we had one day where she asked me practice interview questions. But given the sort of composition needed for the documents, one day essentially consisted of going into New Jersey, picking up some papers, and leaving when it would have been easier to mark changes on a Word document and send them through the Internet. And given the number of letters I write - I work in batches from four to sixteen, with a usual minimum of eight - giving her more time to look at them would have really helped us both.
Never mind that I use industry-specific terms like "finding aid" and "EAD" and never mind that she doesn't work with autism spectrum individuals or people with master's degrees and never mind that the program isn't in place to help people in specialized fields but rather in the more general industry. And never mind that when I told her what I needed help with, she still would go back to 'working on job postings' and asking me about joining local librarian networks - which would be useful, yes, but with the drain of going out to New Jersey, they wouldn't be a possibility.
I do miss the opportunity to practice my interview skills, such as they are, but the rest of it is something I'm glad I'm done with. It's true I could use help with the necessary documents. It's not true this was the right way to do so.
As of today, I think I'm done with a generalist working with me, and the only way I could be happier about it is if I got a ride back to the city instead of having to take the bus. I'm still really pleased with how this morning turned out; yes, I was more than a little rude to my caseworker and I know it, and no, I'm not going to apologize for it. Not today, at least. Ask me in a week when I'm not irritated about talking to someone who kept parroting me to the point where I asked if we were in an Aaron Sorkin movie.
It's always been a problem for me when I've gotten general help instead of special attention - it's made worse when I know people aren't in a position to give help to individuals as they need it, but try anyway, which makes it even more rank. I've been in school programs designed to help people with needs and diagnoses across multiple spectrums that I'm certain were helpful, but for me, were pretty much useless because I needed help in areas they weren't providing. Back in high school, I didn't get much use out of a free period in the middle of the day, not when there were too many loud people to concentrate on my homework. Moreover, the classes I needed help with weren't included in the basic framework of the program because they were too advanced to be covered by the general material.
There have been times I've benefited from these programs. The first example that comes to mind is being able to schedule a test to take it outside of the regular class period so I could go to a concert that night instead. The second is knowing the office staff well enough to get hired for a secretarial position without having to interview for it. And the third is a job placement program in high school that took care of much of the fuss involved in finding open positions around town.
The program I was going to in New Jersey - and now no longer, I hope - provides support and programs across the board for a large number of groups, including recent graduates who are looking for work. However, with nineteen hours a week for that program, and over twenty clients, it works out to less than an hour per client. I've no way of knowing how much work gets taken home and completed off-site; with the sort of program I had with my caseworker, most of that could have been done without a four-hour trip into New Jersey and back and left her to sip coffee quietly for an hour while we sent e-mails back and forth. It's quite probable I should have suggested that several weeks ago.
My program was supposed to help me figure out how to make cover letters shine, edit my resume, find places to look for jobs online, and work on my interview skills. Forget the fact that following the number of places to look for library-based jobs online is akin to drinking from a fire hydrant and I'm doing my best to tamper that down to a garden hose. To her credit, my caseworker did help me with some cover letters and draft position statements for my resume, and we had one day where she asked me practice interview questions. But given the sort of composition needed for the documents, one day essentially consisted of going into New Jersey, picking up some papers, and leaving when it would have been easier to mark changes on a Word document and send them through the Internet. And given the number of letters I write - I work in batches from four to sixteen, with a usual minimum of eight - giving her more time to look at them would have really helped us both.
Never mind that I use industry-specific terms like "finding aid" and "EAD" and never mind that she doesn't work with autism spectrum individuals or people with master's degrees and never mind that the program isn't in place to help people in specialized fields but rather in the more general industry. And never mind that when I told her what I needed help with, she still would go back to 'working on job postings' and asking me about joining local librarian networks - which would be useful, yes, but with the drain of going out to New Jersey, they wouldn't be a possibility.
I do miss the opportunity to practice my interview skills, such as they are, but the rest of it is something I'm glad I'm done with. It's true I could use help with the necessary documents. It's not true this was the right way to do so.