'Problem student' raises loud yet interesting point

It's every trainer's worst fear: the workshop participant who won't participate. Not the one who sits in the back and balances a checkbook or the one who keeps leaving for cigarette breaks — those people are just coping with a dull presentation the best they can.

I'm talking about "George," the fellow who sat in the very front of my daylong class two weeks ago and disagreed with almost every moment of it. He didn't heckle or jeer; he just didn't find the job-search principles applicable to his situation, and he wanted me to know that.

George and three dozen of his peers were in the class as part of a government-sponsored program that was mandatory if they wanted to keep the benefits they were receiving. Nearly everyone in the class was at least 60; several were older than 80. All live in rural Minnesota, where jobs are relatively scarce and where transportation figures heavily in one's job-search strategies.

Talk about barriers. Imagine being 84, living in a sparsely populated area and needing work. And yet, nearly everyone in the room was employed. The problem that we were working to solve is that their jobs are subsidized through a program established to help seniors. Because the subsidies are meant as a temporary solution while the seniors update work skills, they needed to find unsubsidized work under some fairly difficult circumstances.

George wasn't having any of it. Frustrated by everything, including the cost of health insurance and the lack of well-paying jobs in rural areas, George spent much of the workshop either muttering under his breath or breaking into the conversation with seemingly unrelated points.

For the most part, George and I kept an uneasy peace while I went through various strategies, but I knew I was in trouble when he started using just one word to express himself. It sounded a lot like "bullspit."

And then he couldn't take it anymore. I made the mistake of moving away from the flip chart to engage another participant, leaving an apparent vacuum at the front of the room. Up George jumped, no longer muttering, but exclaiming, "This is all bullspit!" (More or less.) And then he proceeded to write a figure on the flip chart — $240,000 — and said: "I don't need a job. I need $240,000! I KNOW what I want to do with my life, and it's not working for someone else. All I need is the money and I can take care of myself."

So there we were, sharing the flip chart and the front of the room — trainer and disenchanted participant. And George was definitely the more dynamic and impassioned. For the next two minutes he held forth on why searching for a job is not the answer and how the deck was stacked against everyone in the room. His presentation was delivered with a loud voice and arms flung wide.

And, of course, he was right. For George, a job search may indeed be the wrong tool for the problem. He has a dream, and he doesn't want to waste the years he has left working for someone else. But if he wants the money provided by a government program, he has to follow some of the rules — such as seeking work, whether he wants it or not.

In the end, George and I came to a truce. After he sat down, we talked more as a group about the importance of identifying your goals yourself, rather than letting them be identified for you. And we discussed how, if you have a goal, you need to create strategies to reach it, even if that means letting go of the safety nets that surround you.

That conversation and George's certainty that the only reason people would want to work would be for the money caused me to ask the group, "How many people would work, even if they didn't need the money?" To George's amazement, nearly every hand in the room shot up.

George was clear in his goal — he needed money to fund his dream — and so were the others: They wanted to work and, if feasible, would do so, regardless of the money.

After the class, George and I talked briefly and shook hands. He thanked me for hearing him out, and I thanked him for being a part of the class. The interesting thing is that I think we both meant it. At least, I know I did.

- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.