Volunteering?

[Bill]

Next week I plan to start doing some volunteering. Partly because I think it's the right thing to do, partly because it might sound good if I ever interview, but mostly so I can condescend people who complain while they do nothing to effect positive change.

I wondered if anybody's had good or bad experiences, or other thoughts?

[arttorney]

You have to control yourself about it. Once "they" find out you will volunteer, the opportunities will come out of the woodwork. If you don't keep a firm leash on yourself you can volunteer yourself right out of making a decent living. I volunteer right now on something I think is a big deal and awesome resume stuff but I keep myself down to three or four half-days a month because I have learned what happens if it gets out of hand.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

I knew I had saved this (http://www.swiss-miss.com/2008/07/design-angst.html) for a reason...

The only "bad" experience I've ever had volunteering was while I was in route to do a trash pick-up and somebody rear-ended my car (with me in it). Car was totaled, and I had a bunch of pulled muscles. In the end however the accident actually benefited me because the my premiums didn't go up (wasn't my fault), and I bought a car with better gas mileage that cost less than what the other insurance company gave me for my old car.

Really volunteer work doesn't have to be super time consuming either. Sometimes I just stop by the local library that runs almost entirely on volunteer efforts, and help out for an hour or two by sorting books. It's so nice and quiet which creates a great time to think, and I get to find all kinds of neat books I'd have never have seen otherwise.

[chriskot]

I did some door-to-door canvassing for the Canadian Cancer Society and the Kidney Foundation to get some of my 40 hours to graduate high school. Pretty mundane, but never really bad. The very worst that happened was when an old lady who didn't know English slammed the door in my face. No big deal. Kind of funny, actually. I also volunteered at the library a bit.

My younger brother did a lot of his community service helping manage various celebrations at the park by Lake Ontario. That seemed more entertaining than what I did, simply because it involved more close contact with people. I think it's other people that make most of the difference between a 'good' community service experience and a 'bad' one. If you have a friend who's up to doing it with you, any community work becomes far more enjoyable.