yeah. the other thing, if that's not permitted, is for LW -- who knows better than anyone what Edward's limitations and strengths are -- to propose an alternate volunteer role for Edward. Martha might be resistant, but LW should have some sense by now of what Edward wants. Edward's clearly used to being steamrollered/enabled by his Disability Mum™, but does LW have a sense of what he likes? If he likes human interaction, could he be a greeter? If he likes crafting, could he make holiday cards the institution sends out to donors?
In a worst case scenario, LW needs to prepare some harmless, unimportant busywork for Edward. That's flat out insulting to Edward, but the person insulting him is not LW but Martha (by shoving him in to an inappropriate situation where he's unqualified).
And honestly, come on, LW. There is no way that your department has not had a backlog of a certain kind of tasks pending for years. Sure, you can't ask Edward to remove old staples from acidified paper, but you can ask him to detangle the rubber bands from the paperclips in the desk drawer, put them in separate boxes, and label them. That actually is important work, it's just not important work you've ever had time to do.
(Martha might respond to this either by saying she doesn't want him to have unimportant busywork, in which case you just need to honestly tell her that everyone is working faster now that they don't have to curse at the messy rubber band tangle, or by saying "no! I demand he remove old staples from acidified paper, and not any old paper, but specfically from the old paper on loan from the British Museum that's priceless and irreplacable" in which case your fucked unless management steps in.)
no subject
yeah. the other thing, if that's not permitted, is for LW -- who knows better than anyone what Edward's limitations and strengths are -- to propose an alternate volunteer role for Edward. Martha might be resistant, but LW should have some sense by now of what Edward wants. Edward's clearly used to being steamrollered/enabled by his Disability Mum™, but does LW have a sense of what he likes? If he likes human interaction, could he be a greeter? If he likes crafting, could he make holiday cards the institution sends out to donors?
In a worst case scenario, LW needs to prepare some harmless, unimportant busywork for Edward. That's flat out insulting to Edward, but the person insulting him is not LW but Martha (by shoving him in to an inappropriate situation where he's unqualified).
And honestly, come on, LW. There is no way that your department has not had a backlog of a certain kind of tasks pending for years. Sure, you can't ask Edward to remove old staples from acidified paper, but you can ask him to detangle the rubber bands from the paperclips in the desk drawer, put them in separate boxes, and label them. That actually is important work, it's just not important work you've ever had time to do.
(Martha might respond to this either by saying she doesn't want him to have unimportant busywork, in which case you just need to honestly tell her that everyone is working faster now that they don't have to curse at the messy rubber band tangle, or by saying "no! I demand he remove old staples from acidified paper, and not any old paper, but specfically from the old paper on loan from the British Museum that's priceless and irreplacable" in which case your fucked unless management steps in.)