STOP ASKING AND TRY TO FIGURE IT OUT! JUST ONCE!

I have a couple of students who tell me that they "know computers", but they ask so many questions, it makes me wonder. Most times it's one right after another. A few of my friends don't believe me when I say it's stressful sometimes. They think teaching adults is easy. Here's a typical dialogue with one of the students who "knows computers":

her: "Can you come here, I think this is messed up."
me: "Let me finish this class, and I'll help you out."
her: "But I think the computer is broken."
me: "Ok, let me see."
her: "It's not going to the internet. See?"
me: "You're in Microsoft Word. Open Internet Explorer."
her: "I was clicking on Internet Explorer! It must be broken."
me: "Let me see. Nope, it opened fine."
her: "Okay, so how do I go to that website?"
me: "Just type in the address and hit Enter."
her: "Type it where?"
me: "In the address bar."
her: "Oh, you made it seem like I was supposed to do it somewhere else."
me: "Okay, let me get back to the class."
her: " Wait, it's not going."
me: "Hit Enter."
her: "I did. It's broken."
me: "Well, hit Enter again."
her: "It's still not going."
I walk over and hit Enter.
her: "Oh 'ENTER'! I thought you said something else."
me: "okay then."
her: "It's not coming up."
me: "Give it a minute, the network is slow today. That's why we can't print."
her: "It's still stuck."
I walk over.
me: "See the bar? It's just going slow. Give it a couple of minutes."
her: "Okay, it came up. Now what?"
me: "Do what you did last time. sign in."
her: "Do I put in my whole e-mail?"
me: "Is that how you signed in last time?"
her: "No, I just put me account name."
me: "So just type in your account name."
her: "Do I type in the '@' symbol?"
me: "Did you do that last time?"
her: "No."
me: "Then don't."
her: "What's my password?"
me: "I don't know. You don't remember your password?"
her: "Yeah, it's the same as last time, right?"
me: "Yeah."
her: "Can you help me with this? I can't find that job listing I was looking at?"
me: "Just repeat what you did last time."
her: "But that was at a different website!"
me: "So go to that website, sign in, and search for it there."
her: "I don't remember the website."
me: "What was the name of the site?"
her: "Hotjobs.com"
me: "That's the web address."
her: "Well, then I guess I don't remember the name."
me: "Type in 'Hotjobs.com' and it'll take you there."
her: "I know how to do that."
me: ".... ! Okay, but the printer isn't working, so don't try to print."
A short while later.
her: "It's not printing."
me: "I know, thre's a problem with the network. That's why I said not to print."
her: "Even off the internet?"
me: "Yes, even off the internet."
her: "When will it be working again?"
me: "I don't know. The network people have to fix the problem."
her: "Can't you go there and fix it? I need to print this, so I can e-mail them."
me: "If you're going to e-mail them, you don't need to print anything."
her: "Then how am I supposed to get the e-mail address to send to?"
me: "Write it down on paper."
her: "Why can't I just print it?"
me: "Because 1. you'd be wasting paper, 2. it's just an e-mail address, it's short, write it down, and 3. the printer is not working, remember?"
her: "I thought computers are supposed to make things easier. Now I have to write this myself. I'll just do it tomorrow. The printers will be working by then, right?"
me: "... !!!!" (internalized cursing)

Now imagine actually working in Word or Excel with this person.

Remember Pat from Saturday Night Live?

Pat was the androgynous character that know one knew what his/her gender was. Anyway, I was teaching this class the other day and someone was waiting for me. At first I thought it was a women, the I wasn't sure, then I thought it was a man, then I wasn't sure, then I REALLY wasn't sure, then I realized it was a man when I saw the name on my attendance list.

Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, but I was just thrown off by his appearance. He's an older man, but you can tell he's had plastic surgery, which gives his face a strange, artificial appearance. Also his hair is a little "off", it's looks like either it's a really good hair piece, or he goes to the salon a lot. Plus he wears small hoop earrings. He talks a little weird, kinda like a combination of an old woman and Fenster from "The Usual Suspects". When he sat down, he moved a little slowly, like a normal older person who doesn't want to get hurt, and you'd expect an older man to move slower and have a little less strength, but this guy walked out of the class fast and gave me a hard pat on the back! Add to that, the fact that he's really tall, and you have a totally weird combination. It's like he was "thrown together" or something.

A job well done is it's own reward.

Compliments are great. In a staff meeting, someone mentioned how someone else (an employer, i believe) was surprised that the students knew so much about using a computer (MS Word, Excel, Internet, mail merge, etc..). So I much-appreciated "good job" from the boss.

Some people always seem to "know".

I have a student who alwyas has an answer, even for the questions she asks me. She'll tell me that there's something wrong with her computer, then when I go to fix it, she'll say somethng like "I was going to fix it, but I just wanted you to see what the problem was. I could have done it." or "It said the same thing last time, and I saw you fix it, but I didn't want to get blamed for messing it up in the first place." The other day she asked me to help her adjust her document so it would print on one page. As I did it, she said "Oh, I thought you had a better way to fix it. I knew how to do that. I didn the same thing on my computer at home." Maybe once, she just said "Oh, that's how you do it. Thanks."

Can you not smell yourself?

One of my students smells bad, VERY BAD. She smells like she urinated on herself, and has been wearing the same clothes for a few days, in the middle of summer. Nasty, just nasty. I don't know what it is, everyday she wears different clothes. They look clean. If I was someone else, I'd say something to her. But I try to make everyone feels comfortable in my class. Even if you smell.... BADLY. I'll act like I don't smell anything. But with this lady... whew! There are times I thought I would gag, but I held it in. It wouldn't bother me so much, except that when she asks for help, it's always a bunch of questions right after the other. DAMN! Give me a break between questions or something. Let me get a nice lung-full of clean air, and then I'll be right back to help you.

I just hope it's something that she can correct, not like that's her "normal" body odor. Maybe I'll talk to her one of these days.