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Illiteracy in the Workplace
| Article
# : |
15439 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1989 |
3,799 Words |
| Author
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David Sims
David Sims is a free-lance writer living in Milton, New
Hampshire. |
One Saturday last August, "Walter Beauchamp" set out on an uncharted, forty-mile journey. A doctor's appointment the following Monday had him spooked, and making this trail run would guarantee a timely arrival two days hence. Normally, the 53-year-old mechanic doesn't stray farm from his southern New Hampshire home, and when he must, as in this case, his hands shake, his stomach feels like one large knot, and he breaks into a cold sweat. Walter is functionally illiterate, and driving in foreign territory is a harrowing adventure of looming road signs and unintelligible street names.
While other kids were cracking the books, learning their ABC's and the three Rs, Walter Beauchamp--as he shall here be known--was squatting in the fields of Aroostook Country, Maine harvesting potatoes under an autumn sky. Even when his schooling resumed, the boy gained little from his time in class. "School didn't mean a whole hell of a lot," he admits. Home life largely reinforced that sentiment; neither of his parents could read or write. Who needed school? Walter thought. But because he "didn't have no schoolin'," Walter's been in the dark--or at least in the shadows--all his years, avoiding risky situations and covering up his lack of literacy.
"All my life," he says, particularly his working life, when threatening situations arose, Walter has had ready excuses: "I got to go to the bathroom," or "I forgot something and have to go get it," or "I forgot my glasses," or "I've got to leave." These excuses may have come in handy, but, says Walter, angrily, he has had to "take a back seat" to many lesser, but literate, men throughout his working years.
A
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