Volunteers and paid employees

[halfwright]

The park I am volunteering at hires part-time summer help and has some college interns. They all get a salary. They are in their late teens or early twenties, whereas I am seventy. I am doing maintenance (painting, building repair, minor electrical, plumbing). Often, the kids are assigned to work with me. The full time staff expects me to supervise and lead the team. Therein lies the problem. I do not feel that as a volunteer I should be telling the paid help what to do. I feel that the paid employees should have the responsibility. Am I wrong?

[Dog_Folks]

halfwright wrote:
The park I am volunteering at hires part-time summer help and has some college interns. They all get a salary. They are in their late teens or early twenties, whereas I am seventy. I am doing maintenance (painting, building repair, minor electrical, plumbing). Often, the kids are assigned to work with me. The full time staff expects me to supervise and lead the team. Therein lies the problem. I do not feel that as a volunteer I should be telling the paid help what to do. I feel that the paid employees should have the responsibility. Am I wrong?

If the full time staff is creating the proper work environment by introducing you and stating that you will be supervising/instructing, then no problem. Otherwise, some of the younger folks may wonder "Who is this guy telling us what to do?"

The other way is let the work commence and when an individual needs help, approach them with "Here, let me show you an easier way."

Paid versus volunteer? Should not make a difference at all, or even enter into the equation.

[bob_nestor]

Maybe it's the way you're approaching the volunteer aspect of the job itself. You say you do the painting, maintenance, plumbing, electrical, etc yourself. It could be the park staff is trying to encourage you to tell or show the younger workers how to do this work, i.e. supervise them, rather than doing the work yourself.

When I was working some of my experienced co-workers felt they should do the work themselves rather then mentoring the younger workers because they could do it faster and therefore cheaper. What they didn't understand is if there were multiple projects needing work that they could do they were often the bottleneck on getting things done. Also by not training younger workers they were affecting the future growth of the company, and lastly if they couldn't pass on the knowledge of the jobs they did to other workers they stunted their own career growth opportunities - they couldn't be promoted to newer jobs because there was nobody left to replace them.

As someone else pointed out, working with younger workers and mentoring them is a real opportunity to pass on the knowledge and wisdom you've accumulated over the years. If you can pass this on to others than your work will continue long after you're gone and that's a nice legacy to leave.

[guidry]

What a privilege to be able to mentor young energetic men and women! I'm sure you have so much to teach them that the campground staff realized what a great opportunity for them. But, if it's too much for you then, yes, you should speak to the staff.

[donn0128]

If thats how you feel, LEAVE!
no one is forcing you to be there. Most of this summer help would gladly listen and learn from someone with more experience. Its all about work ethics, not who is getting paid.