Getting The Nowledge

Coworker: “There are a load of books that have been put under ‘N’ instead of ‘K,’ because they start with ‘knee’ and ‘knife.’”

Me: “That’s going to be a serious problem.”

Coworker: “We can monitor it and see if it gets worse. We’ve had a few new starters this week, so maybe one of them doesn’t know the system.”

(We did monitor it and the problem only surfaced in the early mornings on weekdays, which was when the new starters worked. We called in the starters and gave them a literacy test. We were originally going to keep the results private and secretly put those with a lack of understanding through training, but it turned out the entire group failed. They all came from the same school, so I can only imagine how bad it was there. We ended up setting up an adult literacy course for them, in the preschool area (the owner’s choice). It was quite a surreal moment walking in to the library and seeing nine early-twenty-year-olds all seated and learning their ABCs. It fixed the problem, though, and many seemed thankful for it.)