Reading Between The Guidelines

Me: *to new temp, who is probably in their mid-40s* “All you need to do is copy the data from this document and paste it into this document. You doing this for us will save us weeks of work.”

Temp: “Sure, happy to help.”

(The documents in question are four pages long each, for the record.)

Me: “Here are examples. I’ve highlighted the information in the old one that needs to be moved, and then highlighted where that information ends up in the new one, each in corresponding colors. Most of the information you’re moving is one to one; the line in the table in the old document is labeled the exact same way in the new document. There are only a handful of changes, but we’ll deal with those when we get to them.”

(The temp gives me a deer-in-headlights look.)

Me: *getting nervous* “Why… don’t you go ahead and give this a shot. It’ll surely make more sense as we get moving.”

(The temp takes control of a mouse and keyboard the way you’d expect a nervous 15-year-old to take the wheel of a car. I watch as they struggle to figure out where the cursor is as they wiggle the mouse around for a while. When it looks like they have some bearings, I start instructing again.)

Me: “Okay, here’s our first two documents. Here’s the old one, and here’s the new one. Reference the highlighted examples I gave you to know what to copy and paste.”

(The temp proceeds to highlight text from the examples, copy them, and paste them into the new document.)

Me: “No, we want to take the text from the original, here. The highlighted examples are just guides.”

(Still looking like a deer in headlights, the temp proceeds to type text from the original document into one of the examples.)

Me: “No, that’s just a guide. We don’t want to edit those. Here: this is the original. The data is coming from this one. This is the new template. The data is going into this one. Right now, we’re just focusing on the bulk of the information that’s the same. Copy this information and move it here.”

(The temp loses track of the cursor and starts deleting random letters and words ad nauseam before moving the cursor again to highlight and copy some text, dragging some words to the middle of sentences and not noticing, then finally getting the entire line highlighted and copied.)

Me: *just going with it at this point* “Okay, now put that information in the new template in the corresponding line where it says, ‘Insert here.'”

(The temp puts the cursor into middle of “[Insert Here]” and then pastes the whole line right into the middle of the word “Insert,” then moves on.)

Me: *ready to quit, buy a cheap van, and live on the coast off the grid*