Volunteering

[chveik]

Someone needs to watch a few episodes of Pointless. A couple of weeks ago there was a picture of a pig, with the legend "P_G" and only 95 out of 100 people correctly identified it so there's probably one or two people who haven't head of The Handmaid's Tale, yeah.

pog?

[Jockice]

I do some volunteering for a local disabilty charity. They asked me to after I'd done articles on them for the local paper before I was made redundant. It's mainly doing pieces for their website. A few hours a week. No skin off my nose. It's okay but:

My 'boss' as such is a bit of a fusspot and also not a professional journalist. She's more a clerical type. So she'll change things that don't need to be changed, yet talk to me like I don't know what I'm doing if I make a typo. She loves to say people are 'proud' of having done something. I fucking hate that word when used referring to disabled people. It's incredibly patronising. She also put the word 'disabled' in front of 'people' at the start of an article because 'otherwise anyone else could think it applies to them.' So non-disabled people will look at an article on a disability-specific website about a disability-specific subject and think 'well, it just says 'people' here, so this is for me.' Utter bollocks.

I also warned them about using photos without permission and got told it didn't matter, as nobody would notice. Yet when someone threatened to sue and the charity had to pay them out, my warning was completely forgotten about. It was if I had never said it.

When an actual job vacancy comes up I am never considered. I can see why this has happened. My deteriorating speech and the fact I don't push myself forward count against me. Yet it is a bit annoying, so much so that when the last temporary vacancy came up I more or less insisted on being interviewed. Then they gave it to the person they originally intended to. To be fair she's more experienced at that sort of thing than I am.

I'm probably making it sound like a nightmare here but it's not. I'm 55 now and with the way my health is I'm probably not up to doing an actual job (in fact three of my friends have had to stop working recently because of their health problems) and I quite like the idea of being able to work when I feel like it.  My 'boss' can be quite pushy but I could tell her to bugger off anytime I want. Turns out the charity has almost 50 people doing voluntary work, so I'm not alone. Luckily I'm financially stable as it would be a bit different if I had to earn a wage.

I'd much rather do stuff for an animal charity though. Just because animals are better than humans.

[Icehaven]

  My 'boss' can be quite pushy but I could tell her to bugger off anytime I want.

This was a similar concern we had with having volunteers in the library. It's all very well when it's pottering around tidying the shelves and chatting with nice customers about books, but what happens when they have to deal with noisy aggressive people, or customers refusing to leave the computers when their time's up, or drunks falling asleep in the corner, or being shouted and sworn at over fines? Not that those things happened every day of course, but they happen enough to make it quite understandable for an unpaid volunteer to question whether they want to bother.
There was also the general reliability of them turning up at all. If you're properly employed you can't just say you won't be in at short notice and with no good reason but if you're volunteering you can, which is fair enough but isn't great if you were being relied on to do something in particular or make up staffing numbers etc. And tbh if they aren't being relied on to do particular things or make up staffing levels then they're kind of superfluous anyway.   

[Jockice]

When an actual job vacancy comes up I am never considered. I can see why this has happened. My deteriorating speech and the fact I don't push myself forward count against me. Yet it is a bit annoying, so much so that when the last temporary vacancy came up I more or less insisted on being interviewed. Then they gave it to the person they originally intended to. To be fair she's more experienced at that sort of thing than I am.

I'm probably making it sound like a nightmare here but it's not. I'm 55 now and with the way my health is I'm probably not up to doing an actual job.

Having said that, I did apply for a temporary writing job at a local publication earlier this year. I didn't even get an interview and thought fair enough. Then a few minutes ago I found out who had got the job. The same woman.  Fucking hell. I do know her vaguely and think she's okay but am I going to have to spend the rest of my life in her shadow?

[Jockice]

GIVE HIM A PAID JOB YOU TIGHT TWATS!

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/man-cerebral-palsy-travels-90-24235094#source=push

[Blinder Data]

UEFA were asking for volunteers during the Euros. UEFA! As if those Swiss billionaires couldn't afford to pay people minimum wage to direct punters to the toilets.

[Jockice]

UEFA were asking for volunteers during the Euros. UEFA! As if those Swiss billionaires couldn't afford to pay people minimum wage to direct punters to the toilets.

Yeah, but it'll look good on your CV. I can't even begin to express how much I hate this sort of stuff. Even when I was in the sixth form and my contemporaries started joining clubs covering subjects they had never previously shown any interest in just so they'd get into the university of their choice. I'm sure it's hampered my occasional applications for jobs since I left my last one, but I'm not going to do things I don't want to just to make myself look more 'employable.' The voluntary work I do is for a charity (and I even have problems in my mind with that. A lot of their work is stuff that should be paid for by the government) but I certainly wouldn't do it for a very wealthy multinational company.

[Dr Rock]

Why not make up you joined loads of clubs and did volunteer work at the Olympics for your CV, they can't check can they?

[Bazooka]

Why not make up you joined loads of clubs and did volunteer work at the Olympics for your CV, they can't check can they?

Carbon dating reveals all.

[willbo]

I was unemployed for a few years and tried a couple of volunteer jobs - I did a day or so at Oxfam and a Heart Foundation shop, and tried to help out at a day thing for refugees/immigrants at the local church building I went to sometimes. There was just too many bored people out there and too little to do. In all those jobs I just drifted away after a couple of days as there was just too many people there already.

[Fr.Bigley]

Anyone who volunteers is basically saying their time is worthless. And I ain't got time for people that don't value their time. I like big shots. With big cars and big phones, with big sideburns and a big lapelled doubled breasted pinstripe suit with a big floral and a big haired wife. Thems the real winners boys. Stocks. Business. Shares. Buy low. Business.