You gotta put more into the system than you take out

When you are part of a volunteer organization, please do not take advantage of others.

We go to church. One of the things that we will get asked to do, when people are moving out of or moving in to our congregation, is to go over to their place and help them move. Whether they are coming or going, it is usually a good thing to go over and help lighten the load. Moving is no fun, and the idea of loading and unloading a moving van all alone is even less fun.

I do not mind getting the call, going over, and helping to unload the van. You meet the new folks, hopefully make their stress levels go down, and let them meet some friendly faces so that when they start going to church with you next week, they will know some names. When it is friends that are leaving, it is a nice time to get together for the last time and say goodbye.

Hopefully they understand that they get what they pay for, we are not professional movers and we might break something. (I do remember one guy getting upset when we scratched his furniture. We all stopped and told him he was welcome to do the work on his own. That calmed him down a little bit.)

Some people feel entitled, like this *IS* some professional service that they can call up. Instead of remembering that we are volunteering time out of our day out of the goodness of our hearts, and trying to make things easy for us, they will instead do the opposite.

They schedule their moves at some oddball time of the day, and wonder why nobody shows up to help. If you want help, try asking for people to come by as they can after work or on Saturday. Do not tell people that you need them there at noon on a Wednesday, odds are really good that people have to work and are unwilling or unable to take off from work to accommodate you. It also helps when they have actually shown up once or twice during their tenure in the area to help when someone else has moved. Who would you rather go help, the guy that never showed up to help anyone else move, or the guy that was at all of the moves for the last several years??

Providing pizza or donuts or at the very least water for your volunteer moving crew is a nice touch.

Doing as much as you can on your own is also good. Some moves have gone great, the family moved as much of the lighter stuff as they could on their own, then asked for help with the heavy stuff. Showing up and finding out that all that needs to be moved are the couches and a few heavy boxes makes for a great memory of that family.

Do not lie and tell me you do not have much stuff, or that there is nothing heavy to move. When I show up and find a treadmill and a piano and other heavy goodies, we both know that you knew you had this stuff when you were asking for help. It is not as if you will somehow be able to hide this from us.

Try to tidy up a little bit, there is nothing like going through someone's bedroom and finding the goodies that they should have packed up before we got there. That is just, Ewwww.

Do not ask me to go over to your storage shed and clean that out when we get done at your house. Why don't you take care of that before the big day of the move.

Do not ask me to go to different locations to pick up your stuff. Try to be organized and ready to go on moving day.

Do not ask me to come over and help you load your truck, and then let me show up and find that you have not packed your belongings.

Do not ask us to show up at 7am, and then arrive at 9am with the U-Haul. Yes, I know, sometimes the reservations get screwed up, but try to be ready for that contingency. Have a cell phone, and use it to let people know what is going on, and that there will be a delay, and how long that delay will last. I have stuff I can be doing at my house too, ask me to come back when you get your act together.

I understand there will be exceptions to these rules. There will be elderly people, disabled people, or others that genuinely need this help, and we will gladly give it.

When you are able bodied, and just lazy, then please, do not call me. I do not want to pack your stuff. I will help you MOVE your stuff, but there is a difference.

Remember, we are volunteering our time. If you cannot abide by these simple rules, I will simply get busy, and that will be one less person coming by to help you out.

It is not just the moving however, these thoughts apply to any aspect of the volunteer organization. If you are constantly sucking up the time and resources of the group, you will end up killing the group. There is only so much time and resources to go around, we cannot continually give it to only you. Do not be the whiner that has the pastor's phone number on speed dial. Do not live your life in such a way that you are always in crisis mode, you always need help with your bills and you always need meals brought over.

Do not get me wrong, these systems are in place for a reason, and we are all glad to give them to those in need, but when you are taking advantage of them, there is less to go around to everyone else. Yes, I know, there are times that people are in need and we do not have access to all the information. We are asked to help and we do. However, there is not always enough for everyone. Sure, over time, everyone can probably take advantage of the different benefits, but in practice, hopefully there are those that are completely self reliant and do not need to take. But. They will still need to give in order for this system to work.

In the 80/20 rule, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 80% of the people are willing to let the 20% do that work. If you are one of the 20%, great. If you are one of the 80%, why not see about switching over.

Sometimes we call it STP. The same ten people. They are the same 10 people that sign up to bring the food to the potluck, to clean the building, to do whatever needs to be done. If the rest of you just sit back, and do not do your share, soon enough those 10 become 5 who then become 0.

It is pretty easy. Do unto others. As you would have them. Do unto you.

Excuse me, some dude needs help moving again.