| I'm Here to Help You!
Recently, I chaired a community event in our neighborhood for the benefit of those less fortunate. The event took months to organize and I did nothing but live, eat, and breath the event one week before the generous day. I requested help with the preparations from a co-worker several times before the event, but she was always too busy. Now, I'm certainly not upset that she could not help, but when it came time for the event, there she was wanting to play center stage at the event. My response? Thanks, but I have it under control now.
I had worked so hard on this event, that the pay off was the joy of seeing it come to fruition and knowing that large sums of money had been collected to help those in need. I did not want that joy taken from me, by handing an entire project over to somebody who had not worked to bring it together, yet wanted to rule the roost the day of the event.
I did learn lessons from this experience though. Often when sombody offers to help, they really only wish to take the "fun" jobs rather than complete the duties they have already on their plate. If a volunteer activity means that somebody doesn't complete their normal duties and leaves them for somebody else, is that really volunteering??? or is that just attempting to ignore normal job duties that need to be done in order to do what the volunteer perceives to be a more desirable job.
In some businesses, I hear workers claim they volunteered for this or that, yet they were on company time completeing the task. I don't believe the employee volunteered anything. They were paid for what they did. It was the employeer who donated man hours to complete a mission, yet there the employee is raving on how they wrapped so many presents, or slopped up so many meals, or collected a certain amount of money. While it may make them feel better, they sacraficed nothing. Volunteering means taking the shitty jobs nobody wants and accomplishing them for the good of others, but not to the extent that one sluffs off their normals duties, or is paid for their time.
Brings me to the mandatory volunteer school programs which seniors must participate in order to graduate from high school. WHAT a BUNCH of BUNK! Mandatory means a requirement, not a volunteer activity. Forcing somebody to serve, only makes more work for those organizations in need to deal with people who have no desire other than to fulfill a requirement. Those organizations become babysitters. Certainly not a way to build a servant's heart.
Volunteering to take public praises, to get out of normal duties, or as requirement, is self-serving. A true servant's heart works behind the secenes, completes regular duties, accepts no payment, fulfills no requirment, and experiences the joy of helping for the sake of the warm fuzzy inside. |
