Turbo in waiting?

A-One's fortnightly appointment with his employment consultant falls due tomorrow, and he is meant to have had at least 8 employer contacts since the last meeting.  That was his 'homework' for the last meeting, and the one before that too, but the dog ate it both times.

I reminded him yesterday that we'd better get down to the shopping centre today if he is not to be embarrassed about not having done his homework.

Mum: When do you want to get started tomorrow?

A-One: Early.

Mum: What time is 'early'?

A-One: I don't know. Just early in the morning.

Mum: Well, early in the morning could mean 5am.

A-One: Not that early.

Around 10am, after I had finished my exercise, I woke him.  I calculated that he might be ready by the time I'd finished my shower.

Mum: Time to wake up.  We going to the shopping centre today?

A-One: What for? ... Oh, yeh.

Mum: So get up.  Have breakfast.  Do you need to shower?  Also, empty the dishwasher before we go too.  Get cracking.  We're not going down there at 4pm because that will not be enough time.  And if you leave it until lunch time, the people you want to see may be on lunch.  Come on.  Time to get up and at 'em.

We have had a few exchanges in the intervening hours in response to my
'A-One, what's happening?'s:

A-One: I've only just finished my breakfast ... What should I wear? .... I'm just getting dressed .... I need to check something in my resume ....  I'm just getting something ....

It's now past 2pm.  It appears not a creature is stirring ... I'd better go see what's happening again.

Both a tortoise and a hare

It's been over a week and A-One has had no calls about going back to work. Despite our urging to make contact to show his interest, he has heard nothing and has not been willing to make the phone call.

So I did.

He has been registered with a disability employment service for several years, and they found him his current job.  I spoke to his consultant.  I had wanted to call her anyway to let her know about A-One's brain training work, and to let her know how it has been going.  I also mentioned the Arrowsmith program and how I have joined an advocacy group to bring the program to Australia.  It was not one with which she was familiar.

Of most interest to me was the feedback she gave about A-One's work.  She found that A-One worked really well on some days, but was very slow on others.  He worked best when there was someone there all the time encouraging him with 'You can do it A-One'.  When there wasn't anyone there he was very easily distracted, or would do the same thing over several times when it wasn't really required.  His work buddy was able to complete the whole job sooner on his own than when they worked together and was not returning to the job. So A-One's job is on hold until they can find someone else to be his work buddy.

That certainly consolidated for me the consistency of our experience of A-One:

• at home
• his first job after he left school (Life since school)
• this job (It's all in the timing)

I spoke with A-One about it.

A-One: Why did you phone up? That's not your business!

Mum: Because Dad and I wanted to know what was going on.  We wanted some idea as to when you might be going back to work.

Mum: We're hearing again that even though you know the job very well, it's the inconsistency in your pace that is difficult for employers.  You often tell me 'I know' when I remind you about doing things, and it's clear to me that you can readily learn a job, but you need help in doing it at a consistent pace.

A-One: My work buddy probably got sick of me.

Mum: I don't know anything about that.

A-One resumed playing WOW  as I was speaking to him.

Mum: Could you take your character to a safe place and pause the game while we're talking about this?

A-One: I can listen to you while I do this.  See I'm responding to you?

Mum: That's pretty amazing seeing your auditory processing is somewhat impaired ....

Mum: Remember your cooking plan which includes the times of when to do things (It's all in the timing)?  What if you do that for other jobs so that you can do them at a more consistent pace, and improve your work prospects?  Use the clock as your friend to check things off against the time on the plan. Remember how I tell you to take note of the time when you start and finish jobs? We've been trying to tell you this, but you haven't wanted to know.

A-One: I get it Mum.





Later on A-One came downstairs and asked me which additional games he should play today.

That's a first. 

It's all in the timing

A-One came home from work tonight grumbling 'I don't want to talk about it!' as he came through the door.  We hadn't received our usual phone call to come and pick him up at the bus stop, so his dad went out to look for him.

Some time later I asked him if he had been told tonight that he had been too slow.

A-One: Yes, I received some feedback.

Mum: This has happened before hasn't it, in your other job?

A-One: It was a one-off.

Mum: How can we fix this?

A-One: I don't want to talk about it.

Mum: OK. I'll just put one question to you - you don't have to answer me.  Do you want to fix it?

Our long experience of A-One is that even when he knows the job, he has days when his time management is just way off.  He is unwilling to let us record potential factors such as how much sleep he gets because he always insists he gets enough sleep.  I know that he rose earlier than usual today - so did he get less sleep?

Earlier tonight, as he was riding home in the car:

Dad: What if you wrote out a plan of what you have to do at work - to keep you on track?

A-One: I know what I have to do!

I don't doubt that. Yet how do I get him to understand that it's not about knowing what to do, it's about timing what to do.

Several months ago I decided to write out a very detailed plan for preparing a simple evening meal for A-One to follow when he was rostered on to cook. I was tired of coming home at the end of my work day only to push A-One to get started on his job, dealing with his resistance when I was tired too.

Specifically, I thought carefully about the tasks that needed to be done in parallel, and how the oven timer could be used to help A-One follow a time plan, even when he already knew the steps for the job.

After that, I was able to come home to a cooked meal!  I noticed that each time he was rostered on to cook that meal, he always used his meal plan.

In a couple of days I'll ask him if we could write down all the steps for his paid job - he can usually describe really well what he has to do.  If I can work with him to put times against each step - so that he has a 'recipe' to follow when he is at work - he may be able to achieve more consistency.

...

At Scouts, his nick-name was 'Turbo'.  Not.

Life since school

Some time after A-One completed school, a family friend offered him some office work in the mailroom. He protested vigorously at the idea of working 5 days a week, even as I virtually pushed him out the door on the first day. By the time he came home, we didn't hear any more protests about that.

He enjoyed the daily company of working with people, however over time it became evident that even though he knew the work backwards, his productivity was low. That's when we began the journey of the supported wage scheme and disability pension. Yet the variability in his productivity proved too much of a strain for the workplace, and that job came to an end after 12 months.


A-One became unemployed. We wanted to give him some space to see what might interest him; to allow him to start taking charge of his own life. Pushing him had been tiring for all of us.

With both A-One's father and me working full-time, we found that little happened in job searching unless we sat beside him searching job sites and assisting him with applications - which were few.