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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2001-04-28 - 10:35 p.m.� I am so very, very tired right now. Bone tired, as my mother would say. But I'm tired in a good way. I had to work today, but it wasn't exactly my normal job today. Today I helped put on a party for the volunteers that I work with. Without going into too many details, I work for one of the largest non-profit, volunteer based organizations in the world. I am a paid employee, and my job is to schedule volunteers in a number of programs, including delivering meals to shut-ins, and driving elderly people to medical appointments. My job is often stressful, and I've been known to complain bitterly about many of the clients that use our programs, but generally I like my job. I feel good about the work I get to do, and I like the people I work with. Most of the positive feelings I have surrounding my job are a result of the volunteers. I am constantly in awe of the amount of work they do, completely by choice, with no monetary reward. Most of my volunteers are seniors themselves, and they are just generally amazing people. One of the volunteers we honoured has been driving elderly people to doctor's appointmentss and the like from 9 am to 4 pm, pretty much without a break, Monday through Thursday for the past 6 years. Another woman gets up at 6:30 am every weekday and drives kidney patients to dialysis treatments. Another one got up at 2 am one morning this past January and arranged a emergency shelter for 72 people, and worked along with other volunteers for 2 days straight, organizing and running it all. Then there is the lady who is herself housebound most of the time due to muscular dystrophy-- she volunteers from her home every day making phone calls to elderly shut-ins. They are such amazing people that I didn't mind giving up a Saturday for them. And I had a really great time. Aside from the last minute stresses of putting on a luncheon party for 100 people (Ah! These tables were supposed to be set up by the time we got here! What do you mean we don't have any more tableclothes? Nobody bought any cream for the coffee! Oh crap! People are arriving too early!), it was fun. Myself, 6 other people I work with, and my brother got the hall set up, decorated, got the food ready, and made sure everything ran smoothly. My brother had a pretty good time too. He was very willing slave labour. He probably did about a third of the grunt work himself. At one point my boss had him blowing up all the balloons. He smoozed charmingly with the people I work with, three of them recruited him for various volunteer projects, and the biggest boss man of all told him to come and see him to talk about possible (paying) summer job opportunities. Score! The whole day was sort of an ego boost for me. All of the volunteers wanted to talk to me. See, before today I only knew maybe 20 of them in person. Mostly I just talk to them over the phone. So everyone wanted to meet me in person. It was cool. I felt popular. Even if it was popular with a crowd of seniors. :) I forget the exact statistic, but I think that something like less than 10% of the population does more than 95% of all the volunteer work in Canada. Not to get too preachy, but this is the International Year of the Volunteer. No matter where you live, what your skills are, the amount of time you are able to contribute, there is always something you could do to help the people around you. Just think about it, that's all I ask.
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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