It occurred to me today that I am an enabler.

I wonder if we all are, to some extent.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before or not, but in addition to being a teacher, I am also a technologist for my school district. Actually, I am the only technologist for my school district. That means I’m a helper.

The great thing about being a helper is that it makes people happy, and I have always enjoyed doing that. I’m a people pleaser. Additionally, I picture myself a pretty funny guy, which is really just a different approach to making people happy –> getting them to laugh. Between being a helper and being a comedian, people around me smile all the time.

Well, maybe not ALL the time.

Anyway, when helping people makes you happy, it creates a dependency. I need to help people, especially the ones who I know will end up happy as a result. I like being happy (who doesn’t) and so I help people because making them happy, makes me happy. Just this past Thursday, as a matter of fact, I helped someone and she emailed me back and said, “YOU ROCK!”, and that made me happy.

I may even (subconsciously, of course) avoid helping people who seem to be perturbed regardless of whether or not they get the help they need –> you know the ones: “My computer’s broken (GRRRRR!)… you fixed it (GRRRRR!)”. Those people don’t do it for me, even though I’m obligated to help them (because of my job). I will eventually get around to helping those people, but only after I helped the “YOU ROCK” crowd.

Now, it becomes a co-dependency when the people I help, need me to help them as much as I need the opportunity to help them. There are staff members where I work that need me very little, and that’s okay (in fact, it’s great –> I wouldn’t be able to handle it if everyone needed me significantly). And then, there are the staff members who struggle with technology and they are loathe to do anything about it.

Because they need me, the technologist, and I need to be needed, we end up in this co-dependent dance. They pretend to feel bad for requiring my assistance all the time (which of course doesn’t really bother them or they’d do something about it –> take a class or watch a YouTube video or something), and I pretend that it’s no bother and that I’m happy to assist.

But, it’s in the midst of this co-dependency that a critical problem arises. Maybe you’ve already seen it coming (the title of the post).

I enable the bad behavior of the people around me so I can help them.

The mother who bails her son out every time he gets in a pickle because she needs him to need her. The wife who covers for her husband when he fails as the father of his children. The employee who cleans up after his fellow employee to keep the boss from noticing the ineptitude. These people are enablers. Enablers prevent people from ever having to face the music, and because they’re never made to feel the consequences of the bad choices that they make, they continue to make those bad choices, thereby creating the circumstances in which the enabler –more than willing– is able to offer assistance and be the helper, the people-pleaser, the hero.

Perfect example: in February, I sent an email out to the people that I work with, including some advice that they should follow to keep from getting into a bit of tech trouble coming in the future. The email went out to about sixty teachers, with a link to a video that I’d posted to help them with the issue.

Then, on Friday, the tech trouble that I warned about in February came home to roost, and I got more than a dozen (and counting) requests from people needing assistance with the problem. When these requests starting coming in that morning, I LOST MY MIND. I LOST MY FREAKING MIND!

I went back and I checked to see when I’d sent that email (February) and then I checked the number of views on that YouTube video.

–13–

13 people watched that video, linked in that email. I sent the video to 60 teachers and 13 people watched it.

And then I lost my mind AGAIN!

And then, I realized something: I’m creating my own problems.

What I should do, when these requests come in from people who haven’t followed the directions that I gave back in February, is ignore the requests. In fact, if I ignored every request for assistance that came to me on an issue for which I’d previously issued instructions, people would start following my instructions when I gave them, for there would be no other choice… well, no other choice than failure.

How amazing would that be!

Then again, I’d probably run out of things to do to keep me busy. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

I mean, how long would it take me to address, in some form of communication, all of the problems that all of the users in my school district are likely to ever face with their technology? Hell, I’m already the laughing stock of the district when people ask me a question and I answer with, “I’m sure that there’s a video about that on my YouTube channel.”

What if I built instructions for every problem and then stopped responding to requests for assistance? People would know where to get the information, and I could stop enabling their bad behavior.

Sure, there’d be new problems, but I could then issue instructions on those, as they came up.

Or, for that matter, what would happen if doctors stopped treating patients who failed to follow their directions? What would happen if paramedics only treated people in emergency situations that were accidental. Tree falls on you –> paramedic treats you, shoot yourself in the foot –> you’re on your own.

Google “naloxone and paramedics” sometime; you’ll be treated to a very real world example of the argument between enabling bad behavior and forcing people to face the consequences of their choices.

That’s the thing about helping, I guess. Even if the helping is enabling, in some form or other, and even if the enabler realizes that they are enabling bad behavior, it is their desire to help.

Is helping people with their problems always the right thing to do? Probably not. Is there anyone out there with a good rule as to when you should use tough love and when you should come to someone’s assistance?

Probably not.