[Gllug] Voluntary work

[Formi]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, Bruce Richardson wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 11, 2003 at 04:06:01PM -0000, Andy wrote:
> > Craig,
> >   My experience with this is that a Charity is a business just like any
> > other.  Most businesses don't like their Infrastructure maintained by
> > volunteer staff as they have a tendency be "Here today gone tomorrow".
>
> I would back that up.  I work in the IT department of a fairly large
> voluntary organisation and every so often somebody tries to push a
> voluteer at us.  We always turn them down.  If we had any work we could
> trust to a volunteer it would be so trivial that nobody worthwhile would
> want to do it.  There's also the issue of security.  And the minor issue
> that the people who push volunteers at us are usually the kind of jerks
> who think they're good at IT because they can make a real mess of an
> Access database and would like us to make them look as if they have
> influence.
>
> Apart from the problems of security and accountability (an employee who
> messes up can be disciplined but a volunteer can simply walk away and
> leave you facing the legal or financial cost) and the simple fact that
> most charitable organisations don't use volunteers for skilled work,
> there's the problem that volunteers require much more work to manage
> than salaried staff.  People who manage volunteers find that it takes up
> most of their time and very few IT managers have that luxury.
>
> > you have to prove you will "be here tomorrow to" by volunteering for
> > them for several years.  Once you have done this, you will be allowed
> > to work on things like this.
>
> I sincerely doubt it.  Not unless the organisation is so small that it
> doesn't have a proper IT department, in which case the work still won't
> be much to talk about but might just be the very bottom rung on the job
> ladder, if you're lucky.
>
> --
> Bruce
>

 When I asked if I could have the keys of the IT classroom, I was told
 that I would need to fill up a "questionare" for some gov agency. I don't
 usually get surprised by companies and goverment attempts to get info
 about you, but it was so outrageous that I told them I wouldn't give that
information even if they offered me job.

 I did volunteer for a big charity working with children in the 3rd world,
 emotional blackmail, paying for favours to local militia groups, profit
 over everything and the rest. And how did I found out?

 It was a common joking theme of the payed staff.

 Unbelievable. As well of the 1/4 of million quid the founder was said
 to be making a year.



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