It is strange the way volunteering works. When you first volunteer for a certain cause, you feel good - like you're doing the right thing even if it is just a couple of hours. People applaud your efforts. Other volunteers are happy to have the new face and new help and express their gratitude and thanks. But as you keep volunteering something changes. The other volunteers get to know you and expect you to do more and more. Pretty soon it is volunteering by guilt - you are expected to volunteer and if you don't people are disappointed in you. There are always the uber-volunteers who feel that if they are giving up their whole life for this there is no excuse for you not to. There stops being thanks.
I feel very much that way about politics now. Where we live is considered a "dead zone" and the party has given up getting votes out here. But we're still expected to do lit drops for areas 35- 45 minutes away on our weekends. And if I tell people "look, the Newark people can do their own lit drops, I'm not wasting the gas on something that is tradition but that I don't believe will affect the election at all." there's usually two or three people who say "well, I don't live in Newark, but I'm doing it." Getting volunteers through guilt-trip - I think the party will learn that that only works for so long, then the volunteers simple drop off the face of the earth, never to return. We also have people in charge of things who believe it should be a grim, work-only environment when people volunteer. They don't want to get food in (though the office is well-supplied with plates and plasticware and many of us would be happy to bring in food), they don't want people to chatter and have fun. Now they're crying because people don't want to come in to the office to volunteer. Did I mention the severe mold problem in the office? Real pleasant environment.
Same thing happened with Board of Elections. Never wanted to be a presiding judge. I let myself be guilted into it. Supposedly we get paid, but it adds up to about $5 an hour when everything is said and done. I realized that I don't believe in the laws I swear to uphold (especially turning people who forgot their IDs away from the polls, did so to a little old man last year, never forgave myself). I asked to be just a poll worker, not the presiding judge. I was feeling uncomfortable with the minimal training, with new laws, with carrying $80,000 worth of equipment in my car, with driving late night when I've been up since 5am. They badgered me like the past few times I tried to go back to just being pollworker. Now I simply check CANNOT WORK THIS ELECION every time they send me a postcard. It isn't worth the fight or my time. Yes, I know those new computers better than 95% of the people working the polls. Yes, they need me. But they also look down on their poll workers, blame them for their own poor training techniques and don't bother to get input from them after elections for what isn't working (perhaps because they"look down on their poll workers").
I guess this is all leading to taking back my life. The excessive demands other people have put on my life this year have lead me to realize that I need to do some demanding of my own. And my demand is "respect my time and my decisions or go fuck yourselves."
Saturday, October 27, 2007
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7 comments:
Oh, K; I'm so sorry. I do truly know what it is like to have people assume that you care at all about their issue or candidate when in fact you don't care in the least. There's never an expression of gratitude, but goddess help you if you express a differing opinion.
Hang in there; it's almost over--for this year, anyway.
Love you!
Shadow/J
I hear you. I had to stop volunteering at the HQ because of my own office a couple of years ago -- what a relief. That year I was president I gave it my best in spite of those empty promises of "help" that never happened and the battle I never expected to have to fight.
It feels good to take my life back.
Oops, I just reread this and I was a bit harsh, wasn't I? You can tell I was feeling the guilt from not doing those lit drops, and feeling angry for feeling the guilt. And of course, feeling angry that I was feeling angry that I was feeling guilty. Of course B. thinks about it a second, says, "Hmm, maybe I'll skip the lit drop" and goes happily on his unconcerned way. Wish I were more like that!
Neither you nor Shameless should feel guilty for being a bit harsh when you vent on your blog. You both bust your butts for those people, and it's just assumed that you'll fulfill their every wish without a word of thanks from them or a (deservedly) disgrunted kvetch from you.
Again, just remember, it's almost over.
Love,
Shadow/J
Ipsissimus, don't be so hard on yourself! The neat thing about you is that you get mad, you blow up, and you move on. I've watched it and am always impressed! You have an ability to scare/startle people I never would see as startle-able or scare-able.
You and I both know that those mass lit-drops are basically a waste of paper and volunteer effort. As is about everything that is done in a campaign. If the candidate has not been doing what they need to do for themselves then no amount of lit dropping can help. Nor will parades, letters to the editor, mailings, etc. Ultimately it is the candidate's dedication to their own race and the effort they expend themselves that will make the difference. There's nothing that a volunteer can do to change that.
Amen, Sister Shameless! AMEN!
Love you both,
Shadow/J
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