[nabop] Advice on performing general office tasks

[Stephanie Pieck]

Hi,

I am a clerk in New York State's Office of Temporary and Disability
Assistance office in Albany, and many of these tasks are things I either do
in that capacity or for my "other" job as an independent piano teacher.

Scanning/copying: If you are using a shared printer/scanner/copier in your
office, ask a colleague to show you the basics, like where paper will come
out when printing from the computer or making copies. Also, if you're lucky,
the machine will have buttons which you can label in Braille or with some
other tactile/visual markings that work for you. Familiarize yourself with
the series of buttons you'll need to accomplish various tasks--I took notes
and just keep them in my desk drawer.

National Braille Press
http://www.nbp.org
has some good and easy-to-use Braille or e-book versions of books on doing
work in databases, particularly Excel spreadsheets. They've also got a book
on Twitter in case you're not familiar with how to use that.

When you can't find the info in a book, a Google search can often get you
what you need, as well as hints for doing things without a mouse. Freedom
Scientific has lots of information on keyboard shortcuts for JAWS.

One of the most challenging things I've had to learn is how to work around
times when the directions say something like: "Hover your mouse over the
image ..."

If you're using JAWS, the key combination to accomplish the same task is
Insert-Shift-F1. You'll open a pane that's got way more information than you
need (stuff about what kind of fonts, colors, and coding were used in the
creation of the element you've accessed). Use the down arrow to find the
line that begins with something like: "Title" and, assuming you're using
JAWS, you'll get all the text content read aloud. (In my office, I use this
to reveal full text of past activity notes in recipient records on our
on-line database and user application.)

PDF files are still hit or miss; sometimes, they read great with a
screen-reader, other times they're impossible!

Hope some of this is helpful, and best of luck on your interview.

Stephanie



-----Original Message-----
From: nabop [mailto:nabop-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of minh ha via nabop
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2015 12:13 AM
To: nabop at nfbnet.org
Cc: minh ha
Subject: [nabop] Advice on performing general office tasks

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. I subscribed to this list in order to get
some tips and tricks on how you all perform office tasks as a totally blind
person. A little bit about me: I am currently a junior at Boston College
double majoring in Applied Psychology and Sociology.
I am also from the Central Massachusetts area. I have an interview for an
administrative assistant position in my university's Corporate and
Foundations Relations office coming up this week and I want to be prepared
to answer questions they might have regarding how I can perform the outlined
tasks. I've pasted the job description below:

And a basic job description for our position is: Provide administrative
support to the Corporate and Foundation Relations team in University
Advancement.
Responsibilities will include updating alumni database; uploading and
indexing electronic filing system; scanning and copying; online
research/projects; monitoring and reporting on CFR twitter account; working
with Development Assistants for data reports and clean-up; conducting
on-campus errands, proofreading documents, and other general office
projects. The position is 15 hours a week.

Most of the tasks described I can do with ease, but stuff like scanning,
copying, indexing electronic files and general office tasks, I've never had
any experience with. If I could get some suggestions on how you all go about
doing these jobs, I would greatly appreciate it.

Best,
Minh


--
Minh Ha
Boston College | Lynch School of Education '16 minh.ha927 at gmail.com

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity:
but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their
dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." T. E. Lawrence

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