A history of volunteering
A history of Volunteering
This post will explore the last 20 years of my plights with volunteering.
-------
Orton Dyslexia Society
North Hollywood, Ca
The first volunteer job I had was in North Hollywood in 1994. I WAS in North Hollywood for the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. I did routine office work. Nothing exciting. I did manage to read all the articles they had on file in the office. Took several months. It was there I discovered the name for my life long affliction known as Dysgraphia.
I left there voluntarily when I moved to San Diego.
-------
Read San Diego
Read San Diego was part of a literacy project in San Diego. I gave up several nights and weekends to get the proper training. 80 hours of classroom practicum, and 20 hours of “in-classroom” student teaching. Nearly 3 weeks of very intensive multi-sensory training. If I’d had $2,000 I could have taken a class at USD and gotten a teaching certificate in multi-sensory teaching. I didn’t have the money, so I didn’t proceed to that phase.
I became a tutor with Read San Diego, meeting clients as they were called, in various libraries in the area. In the course of 3 months, I had 4 pupils who quit on me. The leadership assured me this was normal.
I am not so certain. As I evaluated everything, I felt I was just a failure at this one-on-one thing. The leadership tried to assure me otherwise. I was unconvinced. I left the programme a couple of months later, feeling utterly and completely defeated.
This was to be the first, but not the last in a long line of volunteering mis-steps.
--------
Arizona Animal Welfare League
I moved to Arizona, and I decided to volunteer with the Arizona Animal Welfare league by helping out in a local Pet Smart. I did this job for almost a year. And I very much enjoyed it. Near the end of my tenure with AAWL, I had been bitten 23 times by one of the cats (who had to be put down) and was home re-cooperating. The next month I gave 3 weeks notice that I was moving to Tucson. They were not happy with the short notice, but I didn’t have a choice.
------
Tucson Unified School District
I lived across the street from a middle school where everyone was bussed in. I applied with the school, interviewed by the vice principal, and was sent to the district office for further processing. When I got to the district office, I was informed that according to state law enacted that past year, that I was NOT permitted to pay for my own background check, and needed to go back to the school. I went back to the school, and informed them of the dilemma. Several weeks went by (that should have been my first clue) -- nothing -- I walked across the street and was told since I did NOT have a student enrolled at the school, they could not find the $30 in their budget to pay for the background check. Oh well I tried.
------
Youth on Their Own
I applied with Youth on Their Own, here in Tucson. Again I interviewed with a couple of people. But I was told that I actually had to volunteer with the Salvation Army or Goodwill or some such craziness. They did NOT involve themselves directly with the students but appeared to be some sort of window dressing for another organisation. I did not want to go through layer upon layer of beauracy so it never went any further.
------
AdultAspergers.org (Name changed to adult-autism.org)
I did volunteer web programming for the good doctor here in Tucson. She was short on accolades but long on nit picking. None-the-less, I was able to get the site functioning very well as a wordpress site anyone could maintain, instead of Drupal, that no-one could maintain.
Then I met Ms. Priscilla Perfect (PP.). She fancied herself a web designer even though she had no experience. I worked one-on-one with her, helping her learn. Little did I know, to my own destruction.
One Wednesday afternoon, the good doctor told me that Priscilla Perfect was going to be taking over the website. No worries since it was not my site. What she further told me was that I had to turn it over to her in 5 days. Huh? Okay lady.
Well as you can imagine, PP did NOT follow the directions I gave here. I was in the field covering a micro-burst, and PP was shouting at me. As the old adage goes: “Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.” -- She was livid to say the least. I was out in 105F heat. She would just have to cool her heals until I got home, and could restore the files she needed. (Which again had she followed the directions -- all would have been well.)
I restored the files. PP refused to follow my directions, and the site was down for over 2 weeks.
I was forced out of this position, through no fault of my own, but I am sure the PP and the good doctor would disagree. I was glad to get rid of this, since it was like an albatross around my neck anyway. Oh btw PP added only 2 more articles to the site after I left. I am responsible for over 80% of the site's content. Hmm I feel vindicated. I will never attend a local Aspergers support group meeting again as a consequence. No big.
------
R.a.c.e.s. (Name changed from pcraces.org)
The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services of Pima county tries to bridge the gap between radio communications say between hospitals and law enforcement. I was part of this fine organisation for 2 years. The weekly Wednesday meetings were nothing short of dull, boring, un-interesting, over my head, and had no lack of slowness. I was made the team lead for St. Mary’s Hospital here in the big city.
I was going to have surgery on my arm, and notified four of the top brass that I would be unable to move the equipment, and that I would need some help. One week went by. 10 days went by. 2 weeks went by. Nothing. It as at that time I correctly deduced that my contributions to this organisation were unimportant so I wrote a letter, turned in all my identification, and went on my way.
-------
Hermitage no-kill Cat Shelter
I spent about a year and a half with the cat shelter involved in all sorts of computer maintenance and upgrades for the shelter. I reconfigured their tiny homemade network in something a bit more robust, at the same time increasing their capacity. I added computers, and printers, scanners, etc.
I was the one that discovered why they hadn’t received mail in a week. The person who had control of their website, has pointed the domain to a .com instead of a .org. I figured this out around 3:30 am. I told them what needed to be done, and within half an hour, they were getting email. YaY.
Shortly after this time they hired a new manager. I was involved in migrating their website from one web hoster to another. Total downtime on the website: about 30 minutes. (See Adult Aspergers above.)
I had put in over 200 hours volunteer time, in less then 8 months.
For some reason they never commented on my work, and eventually I just faded off into the sunset. Again. They never valued my contributions to the cause, so it was another happy trails experience.
-------
Community Bible Church
I was initially recruited as an online chat moderator (1 of 65.) I was one of the first chat moderators be be based outside the San Antonio area. Time went on, and they discovered that I had a penchant for writing. They decided that I could write articles for their website (this article is buried!) That idea was struck down.
So it was decided that I could write articles for the Facebook Page. I wrote a total of one article...and that was the end. There has been no communication regarding my writing again. I don’t know where I stand.
Once again....another failure.
-------
-------
It is things like this, that keep me from every volunteering again. I have a history of failures, which I can’t shake.
This post will explore the last 20 years of my plights with volunteering.
-------
Orton Dyslexia Society
North Hollywood, Ca
The first volunteer job I had was in North Hollywood in 1994. I WAS in North Hollywood for the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. I did routine office work. Nothing exciting. I did manage to read all the articles they had on file in the office. Took several months. It was there I discovered the name for my life long affliction known as Dysgraphia.
I left there voluntarily when I moved to San Diego.
-------
Read San Diego
Read San Diego was part of a literacy project in San Diego. I gave up several nights and weekends to get the proper training. 80 hours of classroom practicum, and 20 hours of “in-classroom” student teaching. Nearly 3 weeks of very intensive multi-sensory training. If I’d had $2,000 I could have taken a class at USD and gotten a teaching certificate in multi-sensory teaching. I didn’t have the money, so I didn’t proceed to that phase.
I became a tutor with Read San Diego, meeting clients as they were called, in various libraries in the area. In the course of 3 months, I had 4 pupils who quit on me. The leadership assured me this was normal.
I am not so certain. As I evaluated everything, I felt I was just a failure at this one-on-one thing. The leadership tried to assure me otherwise. I was unconvinced. I left the programme a couple of months later, feeling utterly and completely defeated.
This was to be the first, but not the last in a long line of volunteering mis-steps.
--------
Arizona Animal Welfare League
I moved to Arizona, and I decided to volunteer with the Arizona Animal Welfare league by helping out in a local Pet Smart. I did this job for almost a year. And I very much enjoyed it. Near the end of my tenure with AAWL, I had been bitten 23 times by one of the cats (who had to be put down) and was home re-cooperating. The next month I gave 3 weeks notice that I was moving to Tucson. They were not happy with the short notice, but I didn’t have a choice.
------
Tucson Unified School District
I lived across the street from a middle school where everyone was bussed in. I applied with the school, interviewed by the vice principal, and was sent to the district office for further processing. When I got to the district office, I was informed that according to state law enacted that past year, that I was NOT permitted to pay for my own background check, and needed to go back to the school. I went back to the school, and informed them of the dilemma. Several weeks went by (that should have been my first clue) -- nothing -- I walked across the street and was told since I did NOT have a student enrolled at the school, they could not find the $30 in their budget to pay for the background check. Oh well I tried.
------
Youth on Their Own
I applied with Youth on Their Own, here in Tucson. Again I interviewed with a couple of people. But I was told that I actually had to volunteer with the Salvation Army or Goodwill or some such craziness. They did NOT involve themselves directly with the students but appeared to be some sort of window dressing for another organisation. I did not want to go through layer upon layer of beauracy so it never went any further.
------
AdultAspergers.org (Name changed to adult-autism.org)
I did volunteer web programming for the good doctor here in Tucson. She was short on accolades but long on nit picking. None-the-less, I was able to get the site functioning very well as a wordpress site anyone could maintain, instead of Drupal, that no-one could maintain.
Then I met Ms. Priscilla Perfect (PP.). She fancied herself a web designer even though she had no experience. I worked one-on-one with her, helping her learn. Little did I know, to my own destruction.
One Wednesday afternoon, the good doctor told me that Priscilla Perfect was going to be taking over the website. No worries since it was not my site. What she further told me was that I had to turn it over to her in 5 days. Huh? Okay lady.
Well as you can imagine, PP did NOT follow the directions I gave here. I was in the field covering a micro-burst, and PP was shouting at me. As the old adage goes: “Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.” -- She was livid to say the least. I was out in 105F heat. She would just have to cool her heals until I got home, and could restore the files she needed. (Which again had she followed the directions -- all would have been well.)
I restored the files. PP refused to follow my directions, and the site was down for over 2 weeks.
I was forced out of this position, through no fault of my own, but I am sure the PP and the good doctor would disagree. I was glad to get rid of this, since it was like an albatross around my neck anyway. Oh btw PP added only 2 more articles to the site after I left. I am responsible for over 80% of the site's content. Hmm I feel vindicated. I will never attend a local Aspergers support group meeting again as a consequence. No big.
------
R.a.c.e.s. (Name changed from pcraces.org)
The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services of Pima county tries to bridge the gap between radio communications say between hospitals and law enforcement. I was part of this fine organisation for 2 years. The weekly Wednesday meetings were nothing short of dull, boring, un-interesting, over my head, and had no lack of slowness. I was made the team lead for St. Mary’s Hospital here in the big city.
I was going to have surgery on my arm, and notified four of the top brass that I would be unable to move the equipment, and that I would need some help. One week went by. 10 days went by. 2 weeks went by. Nothing. It as at that time I correctly deduced that my contributions to this organisation were unimportant so I wrote a letter, turned in all my identification, and went on my way.
-------
Hermitage no-kill Cat Shelter
I spent about a year and a half with the cat shelter involved in all sorts of computer maintenance and upgrades for the shelter. I reconfigured their tiny homemade network in something a bit more robust, at the same time increasing their capacity. I added computers, and printers, scanners, etc.
I was the one that discovered why they hadn’t received mail in a week. The person who had control of their website, has pointed the domain to a .com instead of a .org. I figured this out around 3:30 am. I told them what needed to be done, and within half an hour, they were getting email. YaY.
Shortly after this time they hired a new manager. I was involved in migrating their website from one web hoster to another. Total downtime on the website: about 30 minutes. (See Adult Aspergers above.)
I had put in over 200 hours volunteer time, in less then 8 months.
For some reason they never commented on my work, and eventually I just faded off into the sunset. Again. They never valued my contributions to the cause, so it was another happy trails experience.
-------
Community Bible Church
I was initially recruited as an online chat moderator (1 of 65.) I was one of the first chat moderators be be based outside the San Antonio area. Time went on, and they discovered that I had a penchant for writing. They decided that I could write articles for their website (this article is buried!) That idea was struck down.
So it was decided that I could write articles for the Facebook Page. I wrote a total of one article...and that was the end. There has been no communication regarding my writing again. I don’t know where I stand.
Once again....another failure.
-------
-------
It is things like this, that keep me from every volunteering again. I have a history of failures, which I can’t shake.