My Story – Pam Guy

Since retiring from Senior Management roles within higher education I decided I should think about using my time in a volunteer role. I made this decision because I felt I had lost my purpose since leaving work, but yet still had a lot to offer.

I looked around and found a role at a local Living and Learning Centre. My first role was to undertaken simple admin work each week, however, when a project (called Be Connected) came up, I was asked to work towards delivering the workshops at the Centre. I jumped at the chance! I had worked on projects before, so it seemed a simple task to get the workshops established and start the training. Very quickly I realised I was volunteering one day a week but getting no pleasure out of it whatsoever. The concept of the offering was teaching mature people to use the internet’. Sounds simple enough, but in reality, it was pretty stressful. Participants were encouraged to bring their own device. However, not all devices are equal, and when dealing with people on restricted budgets, they often buy the cheapest device they can, which results in limited capabilities. Making it almost impossible to support them in their requirements. ‘Be Connected’ is a free service, which also results in requests for support that is not part of the program. I often found myself troubleshooting issues, sorting photos into folders and many other tasks, that would normally be a paid service.

At the end of the year I started to review my involvement. I looked why I was bothering to do something with no financial reward, and no enjoyment factor either. I looked at why we do things in our life and realised two reasons are to earn money and to get pleasure or satisfaction. In my volunteering I wasn’t getting either of these things, and considered giving up on the whole idea.

I decided to discuss the situation with the Coordinator at the Centre, to see if I could shape this volunteering thing into something, I wanted to do rather than something I was finding a chore. I did a personal stock-take of the things I had been doing, and whether they were things I did or didn’t enjoy. Then I shaped a program of work that only included the things I enjoyed. I proposed that I reduce my time investment to 5 hours, and work of the things that had enjoyment value for me.

When you work, you want an incentive to be there. Normal work, you get paid regularly. Of course, volunteer work is unpaid. While volunteer work might be considered very noble, there still needs to be an incentive or something of value for you to do it. That value for me, was to be doing things I enjoyed, with people I liked, in a group situation. I am now enjoying my volunteering!

Pam’s workscape is 50 years and counting. She doesn’t sit still while ‘retired’ and keeps her eyes open for interesting things to get involved in.