renay: OTW: Willing to Serve Drive!

Renay (

renay) wrote,
@ 2011-11-28 03:53 am UTC

Entry tags:

*puts on VolCom cape*

It's that time of year again where I lay down in front of everyone I know and go, "Hey, want to come volunteer for the OTW?"

It's been an interesting year. I have Big Plans for next year (relaxation, making

alasen bring me fruity drinks as I lounge idly on the sidelines, trolling

samjohnsson as much as possible). I feel like it's going to be a pretty good year and as a bonus I won't be in school? We hope. :|

There are updated Committee Descriptions outlining the different work our many committees do. We also have a much-improved volunteer interest form. Sending in a form (created with love by VolCom, Webs, and many other committees) registers you as interested in the 2012 term. You will receive a confirmation letter letting you know we've received your form and then we will contact you in January as committees begin to form. You can spend December imaging how awesome it's going to be and how much is going to get accomplished (lots).

For now, I have finals to defeat. Back to the abyss of lit theory! /o\

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	trialia 2011-11-28 01:57 pm UTC (link)
	No. Bwahaha. returns to wrangling ;D (Reply to this) (Thread)

	I know where you live in the wrangulator and I have admin powers. Just saying! renay 2011-11-28 02:04 pm UTC (link)
	shakes fist (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I know where you live in the wrangulator and I have admin powers. Just saying! trialia 2011-11-28 02:11 pm UTC (link)
	snickering Couldn't resist. Sorry sweetie. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

wallwalker
2011-11-28 02:44 pm UTC (link)

I've been considering it for a long time. But in all honesty, I'm very reluctant because of some of the things that were going around during November, including your own post about volunteering and burnout issues earlier this month. (But not solely because of it, by any means - I've read a great many critiques that make me very nervous and reluctant about participating with the OTW in more than a very casual way. Please don't feel that you, personally, have made me feel negatively towards the organization. You're actually one of the reasons I'm still considering volunteering despite them.)

I still haven't dismissed the idea entirely! I still think that with issues like ACTA and SOPA constantly popping up, something like the OTW would be a very good thing. I'm just reluctant to spend time and energy on an org that from so many accounts wears out its volunteers. I'm already dealing with a lot of other things, both on the internet and off of it, and I can't afford to open myself to that sort of burnout.

So, before I seriously consider doing this, I must ask this question - of you, or of anyone directly involved with volunteer recruitment and relations. What's changed between now and the beginning of the month? What plans are being put in place to make the OTW more volunteer-friendly? I see the comments about notification in the post, and since a lot of the complaints I've seen have been people saying that they tried to volunteer and never got a response, that's a very good thing. But what has been done/is being done/will be done to combat the burnout and the feelings of never being listened to that so many volunteers and former volunteers have commented upon?

...this was a hard comment to make. I mean absolutely no offense to you by any of this! I actually respect you very much for working so hard in a difficult situation because it was something you believed in. I'm not sure I would've had the energy to do the same. And as I've said, I think the OTW is a good idea. I'd just like to make sure I'll be getting something in return for the time and energy I'll be putting into it.

Last edited 2011-11-28 02:46 pm UTC

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renay
2011-11-28 03:32 pm UTC (link)

I will try to answer some of this for you! :)

What's changed between now and the beginning of the month?
This is a hard question to answer because I can't speak for anyone but myself and my experience, but I'll try! What's changed, both inside and outside, is people aren't afraid to talk so much anymore. There's tons of communication and more openness since the beginning of the month, and it's really wonderful because as far as I can tell, everyone's making an effort to make more meaningful connections, talk about their contributions and feelings, and there's less feeling of...isolation? Nothing concrete has changed, but the feeling has...at least for me. There's more feelings in general, really, anger and frustration being some of them, but that's good. Productive. It's much better than silence.

What plans are being put in place to make the OTW more volunteer-friendly?
VolCom has improved a lot! Our volunteer form is brand new and hopefully much more friendly, and we have a lot of checks/balances in the background to ensure that all forms that come in get handled -- the chair does a monthly review, we have a steady rotation and back up staffers to help with intakes. To be honest, in October we only missed five forms total, so in cases where no reply is received, it's a spam situation, on either end. Spam loves us sometimes, especially when we reply. I've suffered through that personally with both the Tag Wrangling chair alias and the staff email address. We have back-up procedures for following up with folks, though (for example, for wranglers if they don't respond after two weeks, we poke from our personal accounts rather than the chair alias and ask people if they got our message).

But what has been done/is being done/will be done to combat the burnout and the feelings of never being listened to that so many volunteers and former volunteers have commented upon?
The biggest thing has already been done: people spoke. For my part, I know both my committees (Volunteers and Tag Wrangling) are working on some of the roadblocks to communication so people have routes to speak.

I also think that now there's going to be more focus on caring about each other and recognizing overwork. It can be hard to recognize when a volunteer is stretched too thin, but I know for my part I am a) more equipped to recognize it in myself now, and step back and b) able to recognize it in others more readily based on their projects. At least in my committees, we're all very aware of spreading the work around. For example, when I built Tag Wrangling I made it a rotating two-chair committee (one veteran chair, one new) and made volunteer management part of the staff duties. So in theory, if a chair needed a break and the other chair couldn't handle things, a staff member could step up and share the load. Self-care and caring for others is pretty much built into the Tag Wrangling Committee -- none of the responsibility ever rests with one person. We're trying to expand that to volunteers in the coming term so the same can be true of people stepping up to fill staff positions, and I know Volunteers is working on making that a reality in other areas, too.

Although I can't say this HAS been done, but it's a goal: I hope that as Volunteers works and makes ourselves more accessible, more people will feel less scared about speaking up when they have a problem or don't feel their work is being valued. A huge part of the problem is not even knowing where to go when these things happened, which led to them being smothered or brushed off. But if Volunteers is able to go "we're here for you, you're safe with us" I feel like this could go a long way to helping preventing future burnout because people won't have to let things fester. We're not there yet, but I believe we can be. It's why I'm sticking. :)

In closing, in general I think that when we believe in something we're really hesitant to let it go, especially when we've contributed a lot of ourselves (hello, me). However, some of the changes have to come from the people who volunteer. Self-awareness and self-care are important and have to come from the person making the decision. I suggest that everyone who volunteers with the OTW in the future volunteer with a healthy sense of "I have something to contribute and I am awesome" and a bullshit detector, and when that sucker goes off, don't hit the snooze button.

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	:-) elke_tanzer 2011-11-28 05:15 pm UTC (link)
	I suggest that everyone who volunteers with the OTW in the future volunteer with a healthy sense of "I have something to contribute and I am awesome" and a bullshit detector, and when that sucker goes off, don't hit the snooze button. This this this. :-D (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	wallwalker 2011-11-30 02:49 am UTC (link)
	Thank you! This does help quite a bit. I'm going to give it a few days and try to find out how much work is going to be demanding of me before I fill out the forms, but I'm definitely considering it. :) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread)

	renay 2011-11-30 03:11 am UTC (link)
	I will protect you with my VolCom powers. :) if you have ideas about where you might want to contribute, I can totally give you an idea of possible workload! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

:-)

elke_tanzer
2011-11-28 05:41 pm UTC (link)

I sent you a private DW message trying to figure out some additional perspective on how/where I can best volunteer in the coming year.... if you have a moment to respond, I'd really appreciate it. :-)

I've already decided to continue tagwrangling my assigned fandoms (and get back into the habit of wrangling needy unassigned fandoms once a month or so, because I have remembered that that's fun!), but I'm also considering what other bits of the tagwrangling tasks I might be well-suited for (by "well-suited" I mean "I'd be able to contribute my awesomeness without feeling guilty about not being even more awesome/available/committed, and also I'd be able to draw some boundaries for myself around expectations so I don't burn out", LOL).

Separately, I'm also now wondering if my work habits might be well-suited to helping out with Testing (if whatever things to be tested happen to coincide timewise with my random availability, for instance), and/or some other portion of the org. Hrmmmm.

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Re: :-)

renay
2011-11-29 12:03 am UTC (link)

Yes! I've been hiding from my personal mail because of studying, but I saw it today and will reply at length with my thoughts.

We do have the general wrangler tasks, and next term we'll likely be doing more open houses that will need to be copy/pasta'ed into oblivion and I got some news that's wonderful and awesome that I am excited to share that might be up your alley. Soon! :D

And yes, if you're into testing, you should try it for a bit. I am always in favor of more wranglers on the testing team, because it means they can poke around in the TW interface before deploys. But if you're curious, you can always email VolCom and say "these are some skills I have, could you use me anywhere else?" and see what they say. :)

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Re: :-)

elke_tanzer
2011-11-29 04:40 am UTC (link)

Thanks so much! And yes, of course, put studying and homeworkstuff first, absolutely!! Whenever you get back to me is fine, I just wanted to make sure the message didn't get eaten somehow. :-P

When I first volunteered with OTW back in the founding days, I did the whole "these are the skills I have, where do I fit" thing, and basically I (and others) figured out that there were too many places I could fit that would absolutely burn me out, so I've done a handful of random things with different groups, as I continually try to get better about knowing my own time-and-consistency-and-other-commitments-limitations (which I could be oh so much better at, ugh)... the one thing that I managed to mostly stick with is tagwrangling because if I implode for a while because of offline workstuff, I can bounce in and out of tagwrangling without causing too much carnage for the rest of the group.

*draws a big ol' BOUNDARY BOX around offline workstuff to keep it from eating me again, UGH*

Here's sending you good studious-luck thoughts! And thanks again!

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	Re: :-) renay 2011-11-29 06:49 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, our procedures have changed quite a bit since then and there's more focus on finding places for people with limitations. :) That's the most intensive part of our project now with induction -- talking with people and learning where they'll fit the best. :) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	Re: :-) elke_tanzer 2011-11-29 05:20 am UTC (link)
	And now I have filled out my WTS form... hopefully it will give someone reading it a few guffaws. :-) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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