How it's Meant to Be?

There's one very important thing about being a volunteer ... personal power!  I don't mean power in the sense of getting everyone else to do what you tell them - far from it! - but power over your own person.  You get to do the things you want to do and have no responsibility for the things you don't.  At least that's how it seems to me.

Note, I said it's an important thing ... not a good thing.  Someone asked me the other week how I was getting on, did I enjoy what I was doing there?  I think she was a bit surprised by my reply, "I like to see a system working the way it should."  She had to follow up to get the response she sought.  "And what about this system?"  When I told her that in my opinion it worked about 30% of the time, I think she was surprised, but a conversation ensued that, I hope, will ultimately be to the good of the whole enterprise.

As I look back over my life, I see lots of separate strands: jobs that don't necessarily form a 'career path'; friendships and relationships that have been discarded ... few have survived the years; projects left unfinished that have eventually ended in the bin; skills learned, but not taken to a formal qualification or fully utilised. There have been so many ships that have been 'jumped'. In many ways I've been a drifter rather than a sticker.  

To read that summary you would think that my life is a misery but that's not true.  Yes, there has been unhappiness down the years ... whose life hasn't had some?  And there are regrets, things that, with the advantage of hindsight, could have been handled better.  But those strands have twisted together to make me what I am.  I'm independent, strong willed even if the body isn't so strong these days, can be stubborn or willing, selfish or considerate and compassionate according to the attitudes and behaviour of those around me.  For good or ill, I'm my own man.  And now I'm a volunteer.

Yes, I'm a volunteer.  I have quite a wide range of personal skills gained over the years and I'm free to offer them wherever they can be of use.  It's good to be able to sit at a computer for a day, confident in operating a particular system, but able to pack a box, fasten it securely and take it to the despatch area.  It's good to be able to spend a morning on a van, meeting people, moving bags and tubs of 'stuff', loading tidily and securely, unloading carefully and systematically, and able to drive it if required.  It's good to be able to offer a bit of management advice, form design and spreadsheet development skills where they're needed.

But I'm a volunteer.  If there's something I don't want to do, or feel incapable of doing, I can just leave it for someone else.  There's no compulsion to work until the day ends; I can leave when I want, and what's left undone someone else can pick up tomorrow.  And provided I don't breach the requirements of health & safety, endanger or injure someone else, and meet the basic needs of human decency and courtesy, there's no voice of censure.  

The outcome is, as I told the lady, a system that works properly about 30% of the time (my estimate, not a statistical fact).  Because there's no continuity, no enforceable plan, efficiency is sacrificed.  Resources aren't always to hand, but have to be sought, materials have to be conveyed to and from what could be an efficient production line.  Because it's a voluntary workforce, relying on donations rather than commercially procured raw materials, it is de facto inefficient.  

We have to ask, is the efficient production line a desirable situation?  Isn't it far better to have a happy, chatty workforce, in a situation where personal needs and wishes can take centre stage.  When a manager can ring me - as she did yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting at home at my computer as usual - to say "I have a favour to ask.  You don't have to do it, feel free to say 'no'."  The situation she faced was explained, along with the part I could play in its resolution, and I gave a willing - nay even excited - 'yes' to her request.  I wondered afterwards whether she had said to her colleague, 'I'll give Brian a call.  He's the chap to help us out.'  In a commercial situation, that would be called being taken for granted, undue pressure or favouritism (according to your standpoint).  In this case, far from it.  I was delighted to be thought of.

But I'm a volunteer!