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Leftovers and a vent

March 15th, 2017 at 05:10 pm

Fixed lunch a few minutes ago. Used leftover pork roast to make pulled pork. It was pretty decent. Tonight will be leftover pork chops with baked sweet potatoes and a salad. Last night we had chicken I lightly breaded and baked. The chicken breasts were so thick that I sliced them in half so we have enough for another meal. Yesterday for lunch we had chicken noodle soup which was leftover from Sunday's supper. We tend to repurpose leftovers around here. I do like the idea of cooking once and getting a couple of meals out of it. I still have so much soup left I will be freezing it for another time. A pretty good deal for a whole chicken I got for 69 cents a pound.

Now that I am retired, I try to volunteer. I was not a happy camper yesterday. State testing is going on in the public schools in Illinois and I know how stressful it can be. I volunteered to help out. That means more than just showing up. I had to watch some required videos and sign off on them before the testing. I asked what time I needed to be there yesterday and was told 8 a.m. I got there a few minutes before and the person then realized the first set of testing wouldn't start for an hour. She hadn't bothered to check her schedule. I was not pleased. I realize I am retired, but that is a waste of my time to sit around for an hour. Schools aren't exactly comfortable spots to just lounge around. She sort of apologized, but I didn't say too much. For years I had run the state testing in the buildings I was assigned to. If I had anyone kind enough to volunteer, I made sure they had the exact time they were needed, followed up if things changed, and made sure they were felt appreciated.

A few years ago my husband who is retired from the library and quite a fabulous reader of children's books volunteered to read each week in one of my schools. The two teachers decided they couldn't set a time that he could read back to back so he read at one class in the morning and one class in the afternoon. I told him not to agree to that because it wasn't a good use of his time, but he didn't want to upset anyone. So, he would show up in the morning, read for 30 minutes and then leave and show up a couple of hours later to do the same. These same teachers would conveniently forget when they were going to be gone on field trips or something else came up and he would show up and they would tell him he couldn't come in or one time they weren't even there and he walked into an empty classroom. The following year I told him not to even think about volunteering for those teachers. I lined it up for him to volunteer in another teacher's room. She stayed in the room with him (which is what teachers are supposed to do), thanked him profusely every time he read, and if something came up, told both him and me ahead of time.

Being disrespectful of a volunteer's time is one way to make sure one doesn't eagerly volunteer again. Sorry I had to just vent.

6 Responses to “Leftovers and a vent”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1489599807

    You definitely know the right way to treat a volunteer! I'm sorry you weren't treated the same.

  2. CB in the City Says:
    1489601386

    I have had those volunteer experiences myself! Once I volunteered to help out at Homecoming. I was assigned to an information booth, but got no information to pass on (guess I was supposed to make it up?) and was pretty much treated like I was imposing on the staff. Never again!

  3. rob62521 Says:
    1489607283

    I don't think folks understand you are less likely to volunteer when you aren't treated very well. Right now there probably isn't an elementary school in my district who would turn me away or turn my husband away, so it isn't like we couldn't go somewhere else.

  4. VS_ozgirl Says:
    1489662430

    Sorry to hear about the poor treatment, that sounds so annoying!

  5. snafu Says:
    1489675697

    So sorry you've had such poor experiences as a volunteer. Do you think the teacher meant to be rude? I suspect she as most, has no idea of how you felt. The majority have no idea of how valuable volunteers are in our communities. There is no training or in-service focus of benefits. Individuals who have never been volunteers wouldn't give it a moment's thought! The very people who need help are so stressed they insult their helpers. It's so sad because it often results in quality help being reluctant to put themselves out there.

  6. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1489801133

    When I was teaching, I felt volunteers were like gold! can't imagine taking them for granted like that.

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