I’m an enabler

Last night, my wife called me an enabler. I guess I am. But I can’t help it. (Yes, I know—that’s what all enablers say!)

Here’s the deal (and this is not specific to the school I’m currently working at—this has happened at other schools I’ve worked at as well): When I see people doing something inefficiently. I say, “Hey, you know you can do it this way?” they get all excited, and then I show them how to do it a more efficient way. Then, even though they took notes on the process, they will still come back to me and say, “Can you show me how to do that again?” and I do. So, yes, I’m enabling those people. But I also know that if I said, “No, you took notes. You figure it out yourself,” they would just go back to doing things the inefficient way. They wouldn’t say, “Oh, yeah. I guess I should learn it myself” and then figure it out on their own based on the notes they took.

What does my wife have to say about it? “Well, let them do it the inefficient way, then. It’s their time, not yours.” I guess so. I’m busy at work, but I’m not so busy as to not have time to teach people how to do things correctly, and it pains me to see people spend hours and days doing something that can be accomplished in a matter of minutes, even if I have to show them two or three times how to do it.

I’m a classic enabler.

3 comments

  1. Maybe it’s your method? You say that you show them and they take notes, but most often people retain things better if they themselves do it.

  2. That would be called spoonfeeding in some other contexts. I don’t think it’s wrong, but others will. There are others who’ll teach something, and say “my way is right, yours is wrong.” And there are others who you teach a method to a hundred times and they still don’t get it. Means it’s just not for them and they have to do something else. To each their own.

    Just look at the results afterward.

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