Monday, June 12, 2006
Volunteers
Friday was a great day of work for me because I didn’t have to do any work. I got to do volunteer work instead. (By the way, this Friday might actually be a better day of work. We’re leaving the office around 10:30 to go to a Cubs game. So, two hours of work followed by, um, 5 hours of drinking. Not too shabby. TGIF, indeed.)
LAF sponsored a whole day of volunteer activities for their employees. Volunteering was more or less mandatory, which is my favorite way to volunteer. Not that I’m complaining. I would have volunteered anyway. I’m actually getting to the point in my life where I like volunteering. My self-absorbed teenage days must finally be behind me. I’m very disappointed about this.
The plan for volunteering was to meet in the lobby of my building at 9:30. Then we’d take a bus over to the site and be back for a happy hour at 3:00. One nice thing about the late start was that I was able to sleep in. I managed to get an extra 15 minutes of sleep in the morning. Woo hoo!
I grabbed the late train into the city, which was a complete pain in the butt. For one thing, it made all the stops on the way into the city. So it took almost an hour. But the worst part? Apparently, this is the train that every non-commuter takes into the city. The damn train was PACKED with kids and senior citizens. There were almost no seats available when I got on the train, and a few stops later every one was taken. I know Rib Fest was going on downtown, but it never would have occurred to me that so many people would be taking the train down for it. Sometimes, I forget that people do things in Chicago other than work. I’m constantly surprised when I walk through the city and find tourists looking at maps. Oh, yeah, I guess people can actually visit Chicago. What a novel concept.
Anyway, our volunteer work was at the Marcy Center on the West Side of Chicago. It’s basically a daycare/community center. It has around 200 kids and is open from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm. If you’re not familiar with the West Side, it’s not a good place. Lots of gangs. Our bus ride took us past countless buildings with the windows boarded up. It’s the type of place that you don’t stop at stoplights. Just keep that car rolling. (And it’s only about 4 miles west of my office). So the Marcy Center is a great service to provide the residents.
When we got there, Mr. Love (the guy who runs the center) asked us to paint a couple things in the gym and then paint the bathroom. There were about 40 volunteers and I’m guessing that Mr. Love was expecting about 10. So he literally didn’t know what to do with us. One of the female volunteers asked if she could play with the kids. Mr. Love thought that would be fine, so he got about 10 people to do that. He asked for volunteers. I looked at the girl next to me and said, “I’ve got a kid at home. I came here to get away from kids. I’m painting.”
The problem with painting is that they didn’t have enough supplies. So I stood around for awhile and supervised. I’m good at that. After about half an hour or so, they found some more painting supplies. So I started painting the stage in the gym. There were a bunch of people (10-12) painting the numerous radiators in the gym. It looked like quite a painful and laborious task. I was glad I was doing the stage. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to do the stage. So I was without work once again. On the bright side, lunch was ready, so I took a break.
When I returned to paint, I started in on one of the radiators. I was able to whip through a radiator by myself in less time than three people next to me took to paint theirs. Apparently, painting radiators isn’t as difficult as these people made it seem. It’s possible that these people have never painted before, so they don’t know how to do it quickly. And it’s not like there were other projects begging for our attention. Mr. Love was scurrying around trying to find things for us to do. (By the way, I was happy to get out of the gym after painting that radiator. There wasn’t a whole lot of circulation in there, but there were a lot of paint fumes. I had quite a nice buzz going that I think I’m just now starting to come down from.)
At 2:00, we were pretty much done with everything we could do at the Marcy Center. So we cleaned up our stuff, took a few pictures and headed back to the office. We got back around 2:30 or so and I didn’t feel like waiting around for the Happy Hour at 3:00. Unfortunately, I left my computer at home, so there really wasn’t anything for me to do for the next 30 minutes. I figured I’d take an early train home. Of course, I just missed a train, so I had to wait until 3:45 to catch the next one. On the bright side, there’s a bar in the train station, so I was able to have a beer while I waited.
That beer ended up putting me right to sleep once I got on the train. It didn’t last, though. Remember all those kids and senior citizens on my morning train into the city? Well, they were all on the train home with me too. And they were all worked up from their day in the city. Everyone was talking. One kid (around 5 or 6, I’m guessing) just kept screaming for the whole trip. I wanted to strangle him. He wasn’t screaming because he was upset. He was just screaming. And his parents did nothing to stop him. I really should have strangled them. Jerks.
Anyway, it was quite a fun day, overall. I actually felt like I made a difference at work for once. I mean, if you don’t think adding to ESPN.com’s hit count is “making a difference.”
LAF sponsored a whole day of volunteer activities for their employees. Volunteering was more or less mandatory, which is my favorite way to volunteer. Not that I’m complaining. I would have volunteered anyway. I’m actually getting to the point in my life where I like volunteering. My self-absorbed teenage days must finally be behind me. I’m very disappointed about this.
The plan for volunteering was to meet in the lobby of my building at 9:30. Then we’d take a bus over to the site and be back for a happy hour at 3:00. One nice thing about the late start was that I was able to sleep in. I managed to get an extra 15 minutes of sleep in the morning. Woo hoo!
I grabbed the late train into the city, which was a complete pain in the butt. For one thing, it made all the stops on the way into the city. So it took almost an hour. But the worst part? Apparently, this is the train that every non-commuter takes into the city. The damn train was PACKED with kids and senior citizens. There were almost no seats available when I got on the train, and a few stops later every one was taken. I know Rib Fest was going on downtown, but it never would have occurred to me that so many people would be taking the train down for it. Sometimes, I forget that people do things in Chicago other than work. I’m constantly surprised when I walk through the city and find tourists looking at maps. Oh, yeah, I guess people can actually visit Chicago. What a novel concept.
Anyway, our volunteer work was at the Marcy Center on the West Side of Chicago. It’s basically a daycare/community center. It has around 200 kids and is open from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm. If you’re not familiar with the West Side, it’s not a good place. Lots of gangs. Our bus ride took us past countless buildings with the windows boarded up. It’s the type of place that you don’t stop at stoplights. Just keep that car rolling. (And it’s only about 4 miles west of my office). So the Marcy Center is a great service to provide the residents.
When we got there, Mr. Love (the guy who runs the center) asked us to paint a couple things in the gym and then paint the bathroom. There were about 40 volunteers and I’m guessing that Mr. Love was expecting about 10. So he literally didn’t know what to do with us. One of the female volunteers asked if she could play with the kids. Mr. Love thought that would be fine, so he got about 10 people to do that. He asked for volunteers. I looked at the girl next to me and said, “I’ve got a kid at home. I came here to get away from kids. I’m painting.”
The problem with painting is that they didn’t have enough supplies. So I stood around for awhile and supervised. I’m good at that. After about half an hour or so, they found some more painting supplies. So I started painting the stage in the gym. There were a bunch of people (10-12) painting the numerous radiators in the gym. It looked like quite a painful and laborious task. I was glad I was doing the stage. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to do the stage. So I was without work once again. On the bright side, lunch was ready, so I took a break.
When I returned to paint, I started in on one of the radiators. I was able to whip through a radiator by myself in less time than three people next to me took to paint theirs. Apparently, painting radiators isn’t as difficult as these people made it seem. It’s possible that these people have never painted before, so they don’t know how to do it quickly. And it’s not like there were other projects begging for our attention. Mr. Love was scurrying around trying to find things for us to do. (By the way, I was happy to get out of the gym after painting that radiator. There wasn’t a whole lot of circulation in there, but there were a lot of paint fumes. I had quite a nice buzz going that I think I’m just now starting to come down from.)
At 2:00, we were pretty much done with everything we could do at the Marcy Center. So we cleaned up our stuff, took a few pictures and headed back to the office. We got back around 2:30 or so and I didn’t feel like waiting around for the Happy Hour at 3:00. Unfortunately, I left my computer at home, so there really wasn’t anything for me to do for the next 30 minutes. I figured I’d take an early train home. Of course, I just missed a train, so I had to wait until 3:45 to catch the next one. On the bright side, there’s a bar in the train station, so I was able to have a beer while I waited.
That beer ended up putting me right to sleep once I got on the train. It didn’t last, though. Remember all those kids and senior citizens on my morning train into the city? Well, they were all on the train home with me too. And they were all worked up from their day in the city. Everyone was talking. One kid (around 5 or 6, I’m guessing) just kept screaming for the whole trip. I wanted to strangle him. He wasn’t screaming because he was upset. He was just screaming. And his parents did nothing to stop him. I really should have strangled them. Jerks.
Anyway, it was quite a fun day, overall. I actually felt like I made a difference at work for once. I mean, if you don’t think adding to ESPN.com’s hit count is “making a difference.”
