Not an April's Fool's Day Joke
I'm leaving Support again. I asked them to remove my privs tomorrow, so that it will clearly not be a joke, but my activity/inactivity is enough to show it's real.
This time for very different reasons. It's just kind of pointless for me to be a supporthelp. I feel bad about that. I tried hard when I was an admin to make the supporthelp role a good one. I really valued supporthelp contributions. I tried to make it a place where people who had something to contribute could really do that.
And I think it mostly is. But I just don't function well there. It's both boring and I'm not good at it.
Oh sure, some of it is good. Reviewing can still be good, and I'm glad I went back and helped a few more volunteers along. I met some good people that way.
But I spent so much time shaping Support to work for me as an admin. It made sense. In exchange for that, I did an enormous amount of work, kept track of a great deal of stuff, I dealt with horrible problems and I kept other horrible problems from ever happening. But I made a system that worked for me in the position I was in. Since the system worked overall, I figured this was okay, and I think it was and is. I hope the current admins keep shaping Support to work for them.
But I seem to be like a whale. I need to ingest an enormous amount of small bits of info in order to process it and do what I do best. I just don't function well at the information level of a supporthelp. It's not even that admins know that much more than supporthelps (and sometimes they don't know things other volunteers do - this is a real problem and if you're a current Support volunteer please do keep the admins informed, they function best when they know things, you can't just assume "everyone knows so they must" especially if you then get mad at them for not dealing with it), but they generally know what the picture is. They know they have it. Supporthelps don't. They don't know where the blanks are. So, it's a lot harder to make wise decisions when all you know is that some pieces are missing or may look different.
Without that, it's hard to forsee much. Oh sure, I can look at the number of reviews submitted per month, number done per month, and the number of privings per month and get a pretty decent idea of what Support will be like many months from now. But that's about the limit of what I can do.
I could do reviews, and they are very rewarding. I could help new volunteers, somewhat. But it's just not interesting enough without that picture of an evolving thing. And so I'm not keeping up or bothering to volunteer. I'm not necessary, so it's no big deal. It was a good run, and I'm glad I came back, but it's not really helping anyone.
Besides, I have other things to work on. I need to work on my writing. I need to read/listen to books. I need help people in more meaningful ways.
I'm sorry I haven't been posting and then my first post is this. I've been spending time with people outside computers. And I've been spending time elsewhere. I'm working on my relationships. I'm playing Eve (I manufactured some guns, but it's not efficient enough to be cost-effective yet, so I'm training my skills). I've been hanging out. I've even done a tiny smidge of writing. I need to do more.
I'll be around. I may even, now and then, toss in a screened answer. I may or may not be right/caught up. It takes a lot of energy to stay caught up in Support, and it's just not worth that investment for the return I get as a supporthelp. Not for me. My skills don't work that way. I've never been a boardwhacker.
So, I hope the Support people reading this will be more or less okay with it. But I should go. It's not you - it's me. This thing just isn't working out for either of us.
This time for very different reasons. It's just kind of pointless for me to be a supporthelp. I feel bad about that. I tried hard when I was an admin to make the supporthelp role a good one. I really valued supporthelp contributions. I tried to make it a place where people who had something to contribute could really do that.
And I think it mostly is. But I just don't function well there. It's both boring and I'm not good at it.
Oh sure, some of it is good. Reviewing can still be good, and I'm glad I went back and helped a few more volunteers along. I met some good people that way.
But I spent so much time shaping Support to work for me as an admin. It made sense. In exchange for that, I did an enormous amount of work, kept track of a great deal of stuff, I dealt with horrible problems and I kept other horrible problems from ever happening. But I made a system that worked for me in the position I was in. Since the system worked overall, I figured this was okay, and I think it was and is. I hope the current admins keep shaping Support to work for them.
But I seem to be like a whale. I need to ingest an enormous amount of small bits of info in order to process it and do what I do best. I just don't function well at the information level of a supporthelp. It's not even that admins know that much more than supporthelps (and sometimes they don't know things other volunteers do - this is a real problem and if you're a current Support volunteer please do keep the admins informed, they function best when they know things, you can't just assume "everyone knows so they must" especially if you then get mad at them for not dealing with it), but they generally know what the picture is. They know they have it. Supporthelps don't. They don't know where the blanks are. So, it's a lot harder to make wise decisions when all you know is that some pieces are missing or may look different.
Without that, it's hard to forsee much. Oh sure, I can look at the number of reviews submitted per month, number done per month, and the number of privings per month and get a pretty decent idea of what Support will be like many months from now. But that's about the limit of what I can do.
I could do reviews, and they are very rewarding. I could help new volunteers, somewhat. But it's just not interesting enough without that picture of an evolving thing. And so I'm not keeping up or bothering to volunteer. I'm not necessary, so it's no big deal. It was a good run, and I'm glad I came back, but it's not really helping anyone.
Besides, I have other things to work on. I need to work on my writing. I need to read/listen to books. I need help people in more meaningful ways.
I'm sorry I haven't been posting and then my first post is this. I've been spending time with people outside computers. And I've been spending time elsewhere. I'm working on my relationships. I'm playing Eve (I manufactured some guns, but it's not efficient enough to be cost-effective yet, so I'm training my skills). I've been hanging out. I've even done a tiny smidge of writing. I need to do more.
I'll be around. I may even, now and then, toss in a screened answer. I may or may not be right/caught up. It takes a lot of energy to stay caught up in Support, and it's just not worth that investment for the return I get as a supporthelp. Not for me. My skills don't work that way. I've never been a boardwhacker.
So, I hope the Support people reading this will be more or less okay with it. But I should go. It's not you - it's me. This thing just isn't working out for either of us.