Friday, September 10, 2004
Dancing Down the Street
In recent weeks, I've made a conscious effort to do some volunteer work, picking up a couple things to do that allow me to exercise some skills that just don't get used - and won't get used - on this job.
I've always believed that volunteer work is a really good thing to do. Working in the career lab at the business school and teaching English composition, I often encouraged students to seek out volunteer opportunities as a way of investing themselves in their time at university and of actively doing something to put good stuff back into the community. Yet aside from volunteering as a candystriper back when I was in junior high school and different volunteer gigs that came up in the small church my family attended when I was growing up, I hadn't really done much to practice what I was preaching to those students.
So I've got a few volunteer jobs under my belt now, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. The first big commitment I made originally required an hour-long training session the week before the event started. As it turned out, I had to contact them to find out that there would be no training session. The lack of organization only increased from that point. Ultimately, I was able to do the job that I had volunteered to do - and that's the important part - but much of the event was poorly planned or poorly executed and, unfortunately, this had an effect on the experience had by the people we were trying to help. In my student services background, this sort of slapdash work has never been acceptable, so, yeah, that really bugged me.
Now I'm working on an English to Russian translation. The coordinator has two documents that she still hasn't given me, and the deadline for this project is Tuesday morning. And, as of yesterday, she's out of town for the weekend, so I probably won't get these documents until Monday morning. Just by nature of its content, this last bit that I have yet to see is probably going to be the most difficult part of the materials to work with (because things like "creamy Romano salad dressing" just don't translate well!), and apparently I must have it ready to turn over to her on Tuesday morning. Gee, I sure hope that I don't have anything else to do Monday after work....
I have another volunteer commitment coming up in November. It's a little bigger deal, involving travel to another campus and being out of town for a couple days. I've been looking forward to it, but I'm also feeling a little anxious about it. I don't want to find myself in the middle of another poorly planned, poorly organized event, especially in a city I don't know well at all.
Maybe I've just chanced upon projects that need a little tweaking in the way they're organized. Still, based on my generalized experience so far, it seems that people who work with a cadre of volunteers take for granted the commitment of energy, time and other resources that the volunteers have made. Yet working as a volunteer isn't about being less professional, and it also shouldn't involve being treated less than professionally.
Despite this string of experiences, my belief in the importance of volunteering hasn't been shaken so much that I'm ready to quit before I really, truly get started. Each experience gives me one more reason to keep looking for that full-time job where I'll manage my own cohort of minions and cadre of volunteers - and to strive at managing better than some of the folks I've worked with have done.
I've always believed that volunteer work is a really good thing to do. Working in the career lab at the business school and teaching English composition, I often encouraged students to seek out volunteer opportunities as a way of investing themselves in their time at university and of actively doing something to put good stuff back into the community. Yet aside from volunteering as a candystriper back when I was in junior high school and different volunteer gigs that came up in the small church my family attended when I was growing up, I hadn't really done much to practice what I was preaching to those students.
So I've got a few volunteer jobs under my belt now, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. The first big commitment I made originally required an hour-long training session the week before the event started. As it turned out, I had to contact them to find out that there would be no training session. The lack of organization only increased from that point. Ultimately, I was able to do the job that I had volunteered to do - and that's the important part - but much of the event was poorly planned or poorly executed and, unfortunately, this had an effect on the experience had by the people we were trying to help. In my student services background, this sort of slapdash work has never been acceptable, so, yeah, that really bugged me.
Now I'm working on an English to Russian translation. The coordinator has two documents that she still hasn't given me, and the deadline for this project is Tuesday morning. And, as of yesterday, she's out of town for the weekend, so I probably won't get these documents until Monday morning. Just by nature of its content, this last bit that I have yet to see is probably going to be the most difficult part of the materials to work with (because things like "creamy Romano salad dressing" just don't translate well!), and apparently I must have it ready to turn over to her on Tuesday morning. Gee, I sure hope that I don't have anything else to do Monday after work....
I have another volunteer commitment coming up in November. It's a little bigger deal, involving travel to another campus and being out of town for a couple days. I've been looking forward to it, but I'm also feeling a little anxious about it. I don't want to find myself in the middle of another poorly planned, poorly organized event, especially in a city I don't know well at all.
Maybe I've just chanced upon projects that need a little tweaking in the way they're organized. Still, based on my generalized experience so far, it seems that people who work with a cadre of volunteers take for granted the commitment of energy, time and other resources that the volunteers have made. Yet working as a volunteer isn't about being less professional, and it also shouldn't involve being treated less than professionally.
Despite this string of experiences, my belief in the importance of volunteering hasn't been shaken so much that I'm ready to quit before I really, truly get started. Each experience gives me one more reason to keep looking for that full-time job where I'll manage my own cohort of minions and cadre of volunteers - and to strive at managing better than some of the folks I've worked with have done.
