Volunteer Woes

I got appointed to be the trainer on computer issues in my office. Specifically since I'm the only "computer guy" in the office, I was asked to give classes on Microsoft Office. (How they linked the two together is beyond me.) We have approximately 8-9 volunteers in the office, they are volunteers but they get some sort of a cheque every two weeks. So they aren't exactly volunteering, so the program attracts low income individuals to spend some time helping around. But then we have not much for them to do, so we have to think of something and the class is a start.

It is difficult at times for me to explain how things work, I much prefer doing it by myself to save my time. So it is a different experience for me. Some basic functions like font changing or spacing is too basic for me to spend 15 minutes just to talk about it. But somehow that is required for this audience. They don't have basic office skills. They don't have some of the most basic concepts. During the class as I was explaining the function on word count, one of the volunteer asked "What do you mean by character?" As I was trying to figure out ways to explain it, she prompts "Like Bugs Bunny and stuff?" How do I begin?

After going through the program in about 3 hours, I asked them to do a simple flyer for Easter as a practice and just to show that they've learned something. This morning as I was helping one of them, she typed "Jesus died for your sin's, Happy Easter!" I was perplexed by the sentence and the way she spelled "sin's". while she was telling me that the word Jesus seemed to be spelled funny. That coming from a church goer who just attended service this very morning. And then when she spelled the word "luncheon", she wrote lunch and asked me whether it's followed by an "n" or and "on". Don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of illiteracy or being a grammar police but all of these volunteers presumably had a GED or a high school diploma. And how the hell am I gonna teach English as well as the office suite when I'm not even a native English speaker?

The afternoon was even more exciting when a volunteer who thinks he is a friend of my boss police people about their computer use. He had been hiding power cables before when he found other people using his computer. "This computer is mine and who let them use my computer?" Um... OK... and then he proceeded to throw a fit and say he's gonna tell my boss about it. I can be very unprofessional when people pushed just the right button, so I let him have it and ripped him a new one.