I'm self employed and spend a fair amount of my time in the library as I consider it my unofficial office.
I'm done for the day and printing out some items out when a woman asks me how to print out a file she has on her jump drive. Since i'm logged in to a workstation, I ask her to hand me the jump drive and i'll just print it out from my queue.
So, I load up her file and it is horrendous. It looked like a 2nd grader tried to write an article. Words were seriously mispelled, grammar and punctuation were non-existant, and the context was horribly fragmented to the point of obscurity.
A quick glance and I see that the article is about domestic violence and was written for her church choir group.
The woman is very nervous as I read the article. After 30 seconds of skimming, I ask her if she wouldn't mind me re-writing it for her.
She almost shouted her thanks.
So, I listened to her story and what she was trying to convey, and I rushed out a quick 2 page article in ten or so minutes.
I felt like a superhero, but then quickly afterwards I was hit by a sad ephiphany that brought me way down
Most people really don't know how to write. Similarly, there are many people (lower income) whom's education is severly lacking and in many cases through no fault of their own.
And then it hit me how I take my writing for granted. What seems easy and natural to me is what the vast majority of people find difficult if not impossible.
Especially those of lower income.
This made me grateful for my gift and I vowed to never take my writing for granted again.
Just thought I'd share.
Perhaps I should form a Justice League of Writers. We'd wear costumes, fly about town, and help the masses with our writing abilities...
Mel...
I'm done for the day and printing out some items out when a woman asks me how to print out a file she has on her jump drive. Since i'm logged in to a workstation, I ask her to hand me the jump drive and i'll just print it out from my queue.
So, I load up her file and it is horrendous. It looked like a 2nd grader tried to write an article. Words were seriously mispelled, grammar and punctuation were non-existant, and the context was horribly fragmented to the point of obscurity.
A quick glance and I see that the article is about domestic violence and was written for her church choir group.
The woman is very nervous as I read the article. After 30 seconds of skimming, I ask her if she wouldn't mind me re-writing it for her.
She almost shouted her thanks.
So, I listened to her story and what she was trying to convey, and I rushed out a quick 2 page article in ten or so minutes.
I felt like a superhero, but then quickly afterwards I was hit by a sad ephiphany that brought me way down
Most people really don't know how to write. Similarly, there are many people (lower income) whom's education is severly lacking and in many cases through no fault of their own.
And then it hit me how I take my writing for granted. What seems easy and natural to me is what the vast majority of people find difficult if not impossible.
Especially those of lower income.
This made me grateful for my gift and I vowed to never take my writing for granted again.
Just thought I'd share.
Perhaps I should form a Justice League of Writers. We'd wear costumes, fly about town, and help the masses with our writing abilities...
Mel...