On 7/29/2014 12:33 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
I learned after a year that if your goal is to have people who don't understand or appreciate what you do for them, and shit all over what you do for them, volunteer for a church.
Depends on the church. I do volunteer work for my church on a regular basis. Technical stuff, but not usually directly computer related as they pay an IT company to take care of the computers and network. They are always very appreciative of their volunteers.
There's a reason most churches constantly solicit for volunteers. A church is the only place that a professional tradesperson can volunteer his services and during the job be told that he's doing it wrong, by people who have never held a wrench, paintbrush, pipe threader, network cable, you name it.
You get that sort of thing everywhere -- whether you are a volunteer or a paid employee/contractor. In my experience, the main reason churches are constantly looking for volunteers is that most people don't see the value in donating their time or assume that in a large church other people will do it.
http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/whose.job.html
I actually saw one time a couple come in and paint a large room in the church, used very good paint, excellent coverage, masked off everything, etc. and when they left the room looked like a pro had done it - no paint runs or drips where they weren't supposed to be etc. Then 2 weeks later the church paid to have a professional come in and paint the room - again - same color - same paint. When I asked why, I was told "we had the painters scheduled for that room, they should have asked us before painting in there" This is the kind of politics you run into with church volunteering.
I see two problems here. 1) Disorganization -- if they were planning to hire professionals to paint, why were the volunteers there to begin with? 2) If the professional was willing to be paid to re-paint a room that clearly didn't need it, they need to get rid of him and find someone who won't rip them off.
-- Bowie
