As Promised

Volunteers Say The Darnest Things When Your Darn Busy:

1. Do you remember where I put my glasses?
Me: No.
2. Can you hold my bag for the rest of the afternoon?
Me: No.
3. Can you find me a pair of scissors?
Me: In your forehead…er…No.
4. Have you seen my hat?
Me: No.
5. How many raffle tickets did so and so buy?
Me: No.
6. What do you think I should buy?
Me: Something
7. Is so and so coming over to my place for supper?
Me: I take a deep breath and walk away quickly so as not to hit the helpful volunteer.

8, 9 and 10 cannot be discussed as I am still too angry to even write about them.

Comments

[Unkie Ash]

There is an inherent flaw in the volunteer system. When you are paying a stupid person, you can yell at them when they are stupid. When that stupid person is a volunteer, you can't really yell at them without feeling like a jerk.

[Karen]

Just because one is a volunteer, it doesn't give others the right to abuse them and make them feel rotten. They're there to help not be a slave.

*HUGS*

[Daxohol]

See, both of you raise good points. I suppose you would really have to know the volunteers I am working with to really grasp why they really got to me that day. It's not that they are not helpful, or sweet, or anything like that...it's just these are people that are highly...self absorbed. Not in an arrogant way though. They are just so used to being coddled at our centre, that they have a really hard time seeing when a good time to ask unrelated questions are. For example one time at a church/community centre event, a volunteer interrupted the pastor in the middle of a sermon to ask what time the hotdogs should be started on the BBQ. Yeah...the volunteers I work with are unique.