Rough Day

O boy, my day started off pretty darn rough. I've been working with a new girl this week cleaning the child labs at the school. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal. But we think this young lady may have some developmental delays that we haven't been warned about. We already know that she has severe arthritis, which she only told me two days ago. And she definitely has some other issues. She doesn't have many clothes, and so she's been wearing the same exact outfit to work EVERY day this week. But she hasn't laundered it yet, so she smells a bit. (I went to DI to pick up a few more things for her...hopefully that helps...and thank goodness for the roommate that bought her bras for her...that did help.)

At first I was a little baffled with how slow she was and that she seemed to get distracted so easily. But it wasn't until I went to explain how to mop that I started to get an inkling that something else was wrong. I tried giving her a verbal explanation...but she yelled at me. It was obvious she was frustrated, but she wasn't understanding my instructions. So, in case she's a more visual learner, I actually demonstrated how to use the mop...and she yelled again. She wasn't understanding. So I gave the visual AND the verbal at the same time in hopes that she would get something from it.

She sort of did, but not much. I now have to walk her through the whole process. If I ask her to mop an entire room, she kinda freaks out and tries to do it all at once. This means that it's not really getting done because she's skipping around all over the place. So, now I have to try to finish my work early so that I can come back around and walk her through mopping the rooms in sections. Smaller bites seem to be a bit more feasable.

She's been doing the smaller sections the same way all week with me walking her through it. But the minute I leave her to her own devices, she reverts to the freaking out sporadic method. So I literally HAVE to babysit her.

On Monday I taught her how to clean bathrooms. I thought she had already been shown (my supervisor tells me she had) but then I caught her using the toilet sponge on the counters...in the childrens labs! These kids put their mouths on the counters! As soon as I saw that I knew it needed to be retaught.

She's done bathrooms all week. Except for yesterday. I thought that she had learned bathrooms so well it was time to move her on to something else. So, today, when she's back on bathrooms...it's as though this whole week never happened. She didn't remember a blasted thing. I almost cried.

I'm not quite sure what to do. I can't keep taking my time to help her with her work, because then my work doesn't get done. My supervisor is aware of the situation and we're both stumped. If she has to be walked through it every day how is she going to work? We can't afford to have someone on the sidelines walking her through it. We barely have enough people as it is. So we're trying to come up with a job that she can do every day of every week that will never change. She can't be put into the rotation; it'll only confuse her.

I'm hoping that this evening goes much better. I have an entire weekend to relax...write my talk...do some homework...hopefully finish that last Giselle dress...and eat some goooood food. Matt wanted to take me to dinner, but I think I want to cook again.

Nothing too fancy, just something to warm us up on this cold wintery (is it winter already?) day. So, again we go to the Smitten Site for a wonderful pasta dish..

She makes her own pasta, but I'm not feeling quite that ambitious yet.

I'll let ya know how it goes.

Happy Friday!