useless

[littlemissdaydream]

I am a completley useless individual......I have no practical skills that can help anyone else out.......

This girl from my uni ASD support group (my friend although I never see her bcs she's so busy) wanted me to help her "transcribe" 2 lectures that she recorded bcs she's crazy busy with her career stuff and school and I said I would....I have until tomorrow night. I thought she wanted me to transcribe it verbatim....which I proceeded to do........I started to transcribe her two 3 hour long lectures verbatim. I told her that I don't take notes properly bcs I can't tell what's important and what isn't so I take notes verbatim and she said she did that too but then summarized later (she said she had the same problem) - I just don't take notes. So I thought if she wanted a verbatim transcription to summarize later I could do it). Then after 4 hours of typing, rewinding and re-typing things to make sure I got it right..I'd only gotten up to an hour on one of the recordings I had already written 6 single spaced pages , so I called her to make sure she really wanted it verbatim (and it only occurred to me at that point that she would have over 50 pages of text to summarize which wouldn't be usel=ful). Then she she meant she takes notes "almost verbatim" meaning with a lot of detail but she leaves out things that are unimportant like anecdotes the teacher tells and changes the wording and doesn't write what he repeats etc. That's not verbatim!Her recording has sounds of people shuffling papers and her breathing and drinking and swallowing and it's really distracting too. ANyway I got really frustrated with this and called her and told her that I'd just do one of the 2 bcs that's going to take me hours and hours more labor anyways. and I don't even know if I can condense the work....I SUCK at taking notes....and now she's really upset bcs she'll be behind in school work and has to transcribe that other lecture now.

This girl offered to reformat my computer for free when I thought it had completely crashed and I can't help a friend out by doing a simple favour I'm not good with computers or fixing things (mechanical stuff). I'm not good with artistic/creative stuff so I couldn't help a friend sew something for example. I can't take notes........and I offend people and am not a comforting companion either bcs of my social problems. I wish I were useful.

 

[King_Oni]

Perhaps some stuff just isn't for you. I don't think people are useless as such, some just need to find something they're good at. It also doesn't mean you have to have skills to help others out. Egotistical as it sounds, I always found that finding something that helps yourself, comes before helping others. I mean... if you can't help and support yourself, how can you do this for others?

 

[littlemissdaydream]

thanks for the advice =)

 

[Spinning Compass]

Don't beat yourself up over it. What your friend asked you to do many so-called normal people would have trouble doing. Taking notes from a lecture is not an easy thing. I know because I have served as secretary in two different groups and it is very hard to distill a 2-hour meeting into a page of minutes even when you are sitting there entering things on a laptop. People mumble, there are often side conversations going on and you have to decide what is important and what is not. That is hard enough doing LIVE when you can ask for clarification. I can't imagine doing it off a tape. And she didn't give you very clear directions. What the heck is "almost verbatum" any how? I'd have a hard time following those instructions.

I also know what it is like to beat oneself up for one's perceived failings. I tend to be quite a bit harder on myself than the people around me. Not long ago I was frustrated because I didn't think I was learning a new task fast enough for my supervisor's liking. It turned out she was very happy with my progress and thought I was doing quite well!

What I find helps with my self-esteem issues is to find a challenge that I am pretty sure that I can master and then do it. It can be something very simple like learning how to convert one type of document into another. Or it can be more complex. I work in a pretty challenging job that changes all the time so I am always learning new things.

 

[Nick12]

YOU ARE NOT USELESS you are a very nice human being be PROUD of who you are If you like sesame street go to yotube and type in sesame street feel good yourself lots of videos to be happy about yourself I WISH YOU THE VERRY HAPPY DAY AND NEVER NEVER GIVE UP

 

[Nick12]

hi it me again please watch this video on you tube sesame street we all sing with the same voice