Volunteers: Are They Worth It?, Author: Ryan Miller

On the other hand, if these people aren't getting paid for their labor, you can end up with some pretty trashy craftsmanship, which is bad. Just look at the Tower of Pisa.

(Admittedly, those "volunteers" who built the pyramids were technically "slaves," but the underlying concept is the same. I'm not sure who constructed the Tower of Pisa, but for the sake of my argument, let's agree that is was a group of people who could've benefited from a little more discipline and a lot more planning, whether they were getting paid or not.)

In the interest of the no-holds-barred sort of journalism I regularly practice in this column, I decided to roll up my sleeves and get to the heart of local volunteering, and, if necessary, perform a journalistic triple bypass to get the thing ticking properly again-unless it's a vampire sort of heart, in which case I'd pound the wooden stack of journalistic enterprise through it, thus ending volunteering evil and hypnotic reign over the hapless townsfolk of the Central Coast.

My first forays into the world of self-sacrifice and donated time seemed to confirm my worst suspicions. For instance, the Humane Society sometimes needs people to help with "kitten socialization," which sounds to me like reading the works or Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to a room full of bay cats, encouraging them to lead their fellow pets to throw off the bourgeois shackles with which they have been burdened by the rich upper class, leading to a sort of feline and canine revolution. It'd be like "Animal Farm" meets Pound Puppies, potentially ushering in a sort of cute and cuddly Cold War era.

After a little more research, however, I discovered that there's difference between "socialism" and "socializing." The Humane Society is actually looking for people who want to work with kittens to help them get acclimated to people and each other so they (the kittens) don't constantly bite and lash out with their claws. That's socializing.

The program seems like a good thing to me, especially since I've been on the receiving end of an upset cat's more pointy parts, and I've wished that there was some organization that would teach cats that not every person is an enemy or potential threat-even if that person is trying to steal the saucer that cat was just lapping out of. Hey, I had just poured a bowl of cereal and discovered that there was no more milk in the fridge. Like you've never done it.

Anyway, since the Humane Society checked out clean, I moved on to another organization: the blood bank. If this wasn't a place where vampires hung out, I wouldn't know what was. Armed with garlic, a cross I make from the two pencils I never use, and a canteen filled with holy water ( actually, it's just tap water I filtered through a Brita since I was in a hurry ), I crept into the Blood Bank office. Then, I remembered that I wasn't actually hunting vampires-I had just used the fanged undead as a bizarre metaphor earlier in this column. I was actually on the lookout for information on the potential pitfalls of volunteering.

Once again, my misplaced intentions resulted in my embarrassment. Not only does the blood bank not employ and vampires ( I can't vouch for the absence of other monsters, however ), the place actually saves lives. Go figure. And it counts on community members to volunteer to give their blood, particularly at this time of year when bad weather causes more accidents, which lead to more hospital visits and transfusions.

At this point, I gave up on my volunteering expose, and decided to do some actual volunteering of my own. For starters, I volunteered to clean out all the hair in our shower drain, because my wife hates it. I also volunteered to come to work today and write this column, even though it's raining. I try to help out where I can.

Copyright 1-6-05.