How much should people help you and how much go it alone?

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I recently completed a work trial at a lettings agency where my boss dumped the task of shooting and editing a youtube video of a property on me although I told her I had no experience of doing anything like this. I had never claimed to have these skills at the interview. I failed to complete the video and was told when the work trial finished that they were not going to hire me as they did not believe my skills were suited to the job. Personally I think that the work trial was just a cover for the fact that they needed someone to work for them on a temporary basis while the boss was on holiday as she was away most of the three weeks I was there. They probably didn’t want the expense of any temp agency worker. I felt overwhelmed by the idea of doing something I had no idea how to do and so was too scared to attempt it as I might screw up wipe the footage from the camera etc. I was in no way confident of my ability to do the task. So I didn’t attempt it and hoped my boss would help me with it at some point when she was back. A defeatist attitude I know and I was wrong but I was under pressure with everything learning a new job and was told by my boss that the video wasn’t a priority.

When I told my father what they had said he told me I should have used my initiative and done the video at home in my own time and read the camera manual etc to work out how to do it. It’s fair to say I’ve never read a technical manual that’s been easy to understand I generally don’t find them all that helpful. Dad pointed out that during his time as an engineer he was tasked with doing things that he didn’t previously know by reading manuals. But it would seem to me that since that was the case he is used to these things whereas I am not I usually have someone to help me learn things rather than go it alone with a manual. I’m not an engineer I’m an English Lit graduate so technical stuff is not my main area. Making sense of Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe would probably be a lot easier for me than making sense of most technical manuals!

My father pointed out that given the time and resources available to me he himself could have easily produced the youtube video. (Let it be noted that I only had the video camera at home for one evening before taking it back into work and was only doing a two day week so was not at work with the camera and didn’t have it at home for most of the time. ) Afterwards I couldn’t help but think that given the fact that he himself thought the task was easily achieved and he was living in the same house he had access to the same time and resources available to him as I had to allow him to help me complete the task. He could have used his technical acumen to guarantee my success! He obviously did not find it the daunting challenge that I felt it was if he felt it was easily achieved. Had he told me that he felt he could do the task at the time when I had the camera at home and encouraged me to do the video with his help I would certainly have done it and been grateful for the help. However at the time I made the assumption that Dad could not help me with the task as he had no experience with youtube and never mentioned his confidence in his ability to do it or made me any offer of help. In spite of the fact that he knew I was unimpressed that I had been given a task without any training from my boss. My Dad basically sat back and watched me fail at a task I found too difficult then told me how easy he thought it was only after I had lost my job!

What do you guys think, should he have helped me with the task or expected me to go it alone? Was he just sounding off about his ability to do the task considering he never attempted it at the time? I almost feel like putting a video camera in his hands and asking him to do the same task so I can watch and learn how it’s done!

The irony is at times my Dad has been quite patronising in situations where I didn’t need to be told what to do, (Sitting in the car with me telling me how to drive after I’ve already passed my test etc) yet when it came to something quite challenging the last thing he did was coach me on what to do! It could have potentially saved me my job!