Volunteer managers, you have my sympathy

The organizations for which I volunteer would have a difficult, if not impossible task, of being effective were it not for me.

Well, that’s a bit extreme. Let’s just say all of us who volunteer provide important services. And I believe that most volunteers, like me, try to be professional - reliable, competent, and caring.

But for those paid employees who must manage us, volunteers might be a mixed blessing. As a manager of paid employees, I always had some degree of leverage over their performance - evaluations, scoldings, or even the threat of termination. (Johnson’s Experience in Assigning Tasks: You may as well give unpleasant jobs to people who are already unhappy.) But how does one criticize the work of someone who is simply there for the sake of doing good?

I asked that question of the housing manager of the senior apartment building for which I regularly drive a large van, taking residents shopping and on “field trips.” She kindly replied that “her” volunteers did not cause any problems so the issue of correcting them or discharging them has never come up. Hmmmmmm. 

And she was addressing me. A driver who once put a hole in the side of the van by driving too close to a construction trailer. That has bumped over trash containers and that regularly hits curbs. I have asked on rare occasion to change the date or time of my service or for someone else to take my date. I would say 99% of the time I do a good job. But I am far from the perfect volunteer.

This holds true for each of the volunteer activities I perform including driving people to doctor appointments, serving as a volunteer Ombudsman in an assisted care facility, leading hikes for an outdoor club, and participating in Rotary activities. While I do my darndest to bring the professionalism I displayed in my paid work to these jobs, I do mess up now and then. And just maybe I am not as good at doing these things as I think I am.

Bless those who manage volunteers by helping them improve their performance without making them so angry or hurt or feeling incompetent that they simply quit. I don’t know the secret. But I wonder if more supervisors and managers treated paid employees like volunteers, it might just help both the effectiveness and the lives of all concerned.

The joy of old clothing

Now that winter temps have actually arrived here in Minnesota (-19 this morning), I’ve started wearing the warm cap you see in the photo above. A photo that was taken over 15 years ago.

I genuinely enjoy wearing my old clothes. The long sleeved t-shirt I wore on Kilimanjaro in 2010. Warm socks that have held together for years. A leather jacket that has been to the shop for repairs. And soft flannel shirts that still bring warmth and comfort despite being purchased in some previous decade of brands no longer made. The Carhartt coat I am wearing in the photo above still hangs in my garage as my work coat.

Old clothes make me happy not just because they are physically comfortable, but because they often stir good memories.

The vest and shirt I am wearing in the photo above, taken on the Inca Trail’s Dead Woman’s Pass in 2006, still hang in my closet. (I just wore the shirt last week.) I think of the challenge of that hike each time I button it up.

Sadly, due to physical aging, I have no pants from days gone by due to an increased waist size. How did I go from 34 waist, 36 inseam to 38 waist, 34 inseam? My favorite shoes that I wear daily, Merrell Jungle Mocs, have been the same style and color for heaven knows how many years, but they get replaced due to wear and tear now and then.

As a wannabe minimalist living with limited closet space, I make a real effort to only keep what I need. I have made it a habit that when I buy a new shirt, I donate an old shirt to a charity. When nearly every shirt one owns is loved, it makes buying new ones quite difficult.

One clothing category I am struggling with weeding out is my old dress clothes - the sports jackets, dress trousers, and neckties I wore over the 43 years of my professional career. The odds of my needing dress clothes for work in the future are miniscule and I only get invited to swanky dinners and dances once every other decade. I do still have a 20+ year old black suit that I wear to funerals and weddings. Maybe it is enough and I can free up a few more coat hangers by ditching some jackets.

I wonder if we all might be better at living within our means if we knew that when we purchased any new thing, an old one had to go. May all my donations find loving owners.

Is there an intelligent way to use social media?

The “evils” of social media have been getting a good deal of press lately. Zuckerberg’s decision to no longer do fact checking on Meta has been controversial. Excessive time spent on social media by kids (and adults) has been blamed for less healthy mental conditions. The platform X is used by people sowing discord and disinformation to the detriment of our country’s political stability. 

Recently Tim Stahmer posted on his Assorted Stuff blog this cartoon and comment:

For me, the value of social media hit a peak several years ago and since has been on a steep decline. It would certainly have greater worth if more people would adopt Pig’s stupidity filter… https://www.assortedstuff.com/stupidity-filter/

With Zuckerberg’s decision to stop fact-checking, I have a friend who simply has decided to stop using Facebook. I deleted my Twitter account when Musk bought the company. I have no interest in joining Blue Sky.

Yet aren’t social media networks simply tools, and like other tools, be used for both good and ill? One of my axioms is that the same hammer can be used to both build a cathedral and break its windows. So while the negative uses of social media platforms seem rampant, are there ways we can teach kids how to use these tools in ways that may be of value to them? I would suggest:

1. Limits. I restrict who and what I follow on Facebook, using it to mainly keep up with friends and family and a few (travel) companies. I have long ago blocked the comments of those people who are overly political. I hit the “Hide all from…” link on posts daily. My feed is still a little cluttered, but it does not seem to contain the nut job opinions and factoids from either the left or right. Choose carefully who to friend or follow.

2. Purpose. My use of social is, well, social. It’s to keep up with people I actually know well enough to pick out of a police lineup. I do NOT use it for news. I do not use it to shop. I do not use it to inflame others with my political opinions. I expect and try to demonstrate the same behaviors online that I would at a F2F get together.

3. Alternate sources of information. Unless it knowing where a buddy went on vacation or if a grandchild is in a science fair contest, I do not look to social media for news. I trust vetted news sources like newspapers, magazines, and public radio. Are these all bias free? Of course not, but they try to be. The newspapers I read make an attempt to share the opinions of both liberal and conservative columnists.

4. Alternate means of communication. Which leads me to acknowledge that I communicate by other means than social media. I make phone calls. I send text messages. I read books and magazines. I listen to news on the radio and on television. 

5. Alternate uses for devices. I do spend a lot of time on my computer, my tablet, and on my smartphone. But a small percentage of that time is actually on Facebook. As a volunteer driver of clients to medical appointments, I spend a lot of time sitting in waiting rooms while they seed their health care specialist. I pass the time by reading an actual book on my phone. I read magazines and books on my tablet. I play games on my computer (a self-limited amount), book travel arrangements, and pay my bills. I write. I use my phone for GoogleMaps and as a camera. Having a smartphone doesn’t mean having to use it solely for looking at social media sites.

But perhaps I am not a good source of advice about using social media. I was 50 years old when MySpace launched, followed by Twitter a couple years later. Communication and information retrieval and online shopping have never been “baked in” to my habits. I’ve never been professionally dependent on LinkedIn. Never even posted an original dance to TikTok or shared any naughty photos of myself or others. I’m a bit of a digital troglodyte. I even still read real newspapers and books (although in digital formats).

Social media is not going away. We better learn to use it wisely, and perhaps more importantly, teach our kids to do so as well.

Your tips to improve the use of these tools?