So much solitude, and unable to teach.

I didn't mind all the solitary work much, to an extent I found it relaxing (though after about four hours it felt like a chore). By the time spring break rolled around I felt I had figured everything out about the program, but still didn't know exactly what their needs were in relation to the program. I knew that they would have to make some changes in how they scheduled (for example, instead of having a full month's schedule to hang on the bulletin board, they could only print off one week at a time), but didn't know exactly what that would look like, or even if those changes could be made.

I wasn't around during spring break, so it was a couple weeks before I went in to begin teaching them what I had figured out. However, at that point, between a stomach bug that was going around, and some family commitments, there wasn't anyone around that I could work with. Instead, I spent even more time in solitude, making small adjustments to the data I had been putting in, and trying to figure out back doors to making the program do what I wanted it to, rather than what a typical doctor's office would need. One thing I had a bit of trouble with was the night caregivers. They don't work normal hours, and if we put their schedules in during the night, the printouts were tiny and almost completely illegible. I ended up deciding that they would just have to be content with the night shifts scheduled for the daytime before they actually started. It made sense because that's how they had been writing it on the old calendars.

I had no idea how I was going to start teaching and explaining this program to the woman in charge of scheduling. We ended up jumping in and sitting down and I went through everything, but had the hardest time explaining it all. How do you explain how to run a report, when someone doesn't even recognize those words in a computer context? There were about two weeks when it all felt pretty hopeless. She didn't seem to be picking up what I was saying, and I couldn't figure out how to say it so she would understand. I felt like the biggest failure, and started to get really anxious about being able to finish the internship so that they were happy with the work that I'd done. Really the only decently-productive thing that came out of those weeks was the fact that I learned a LOT more about how their scheduling works, and what their needs are, just from the questions she was asking about the program. However, me knowing what they needed and actually being able to deliver were two terribly and terrifyingly different things.

More to come,

Kelsi