My life's Adventure

Working daily four hour shifts as a proctor.

I have worked for four exams now the last three in the afternoon. I have one today in the afternoon and one tomorrow then have Sunday off work then back to work for another four days. The work is easy and just requires being quiet and keeping the exam space quiet. I also must enforce the exam rules and yesterday I actually had to read things to the class. The first day I just needed to yell to the students as they came in the theatre to put their bags at the front. Another proctor read the instructions and made announcements. On Tuesday and Wednesday the exams I worked at were in large gyms so I did not speak but the Chief Proctor spoke over a PA. But yesterday was in a small classroom so I was the only proctor for that exam and needed to read the instructions myself.

R started a new job and I helped him get started. The first step was I guess encourging him to use a Clubhouse. The club house helped him find an interview. I always encourge clubhouses for consumers because we have a clubhouse in my city, (I suppose if your crafty you could find out where I live from this info.)The step at hand was to research the company he had an interview at on the internet because he only knew three initials for the company name. We found the company's web site and then I read him the career sections on the web site because of his literacy issues and helped explain what I thought the work would be like based on the company web site info. I was right. His report last night over late night coffee was similar to the work described on the web site. He passed the interview and trained on Thursday for his first real day on the job. I helped him get to sleep early Wednesday and he got to work for training an hour early so it worked out fine. That is one day done. I also late last night coached him on some arithmetic.

When I help a consumer/survivor/friend I do not take money for this service but only try to use the experience to improve my own career prospects if it is math related or otherwise only try to get health myself from the experience. Recovery breeds recovery. Peer support is a two way street of support flowing both ways.