The World's Common Tater

When I transferred from my previous organization to the branch that stole what little joy I had and eventually drove me to quit my job, I did so with over 20 years of experience.

One of my main jobs at the time of the transfer was doing the staff schedule for the biggest branch in the system. I transferred to the smallest branch in the system. My new boss didn’t trust me to schedule her branch at first even though it was once again one of the main tasks of my job. When she did turn the job over to me it was weeks before I was allowed to publish the schedule without her looking at it first. We reverted back to that when we went back after the Covid closure. I did the schedule, she looked at it, made changes that usually didn’t work and then she published it.

There was no trust. The was no appreciation for the job I did. That includes the people above my boss. They knew the issues. I told them about issues other people had with her. They were happy to see me go instead of her because their life was easier when the complainer left. I’m not sure much has changed there.

Fast forward to now. I have been volunteering at MTR for 7 months. Yesterday, when the volunteer coordinator was filling in for the regular barn lead the first thing she said was “It’s been a long time since I’ve been the barn lead, but they told me you know everything so I should be OK” When she had to be in a class mid-shift she asked if I would facilitate the barn work for the rest of the shift. I stayed a little late to make sure someone was there to do the mid-morning feeding, When I checked in before I left both the volunteer coordinator and the operations manager thanked me for doing extra. I then got a text that afternoon thanking me again.

When I started doing facilities work, I was shown how to operate everything once and then was asked to come in and do it alone two days later. There is no one on the property to “supervise” me as I operate expensive heavy machinery. It seems like going forward that half of my Friday shifts will be me and another newer volunteer doing the barn work with no official barn lead because they trust us to get the job done.

It’s amazing how different my experiences have been and why I am hoping I can continue to volunteer there and not go back to a real job.