(no subject)
Okay so it's been a while. Sorry about that.
In the last 6-or-so weeks, I've been working as a street fundraiser (or charity mugger if you prefer). It was a crazy, crazy experience, but great fun. I've learned a lot about me, about other people, and about the world in my short stint doing it.
My first week was spent raising money for the Association for International Cancer Research. I was wet behind the ears, I was nervous and (relatively) introverted, and I really didn't do well. We have a target of 0.4 signups-per-hour (and the minimum donation for it to count to our scores is £8 a month). I got 2 signups in 4 days; and later I found that one of them had been a "mystery shopper" on behalf of the regulatory association and that signup wasn't genuine at all. That sucked.
Then I was put onto Oxfam for the I'm in campaign. This was much easier, since we were just collecting people's names and contact details for the campaign rather than getting people to make direct debits or standing orders to charities. I actually enjoyed this work, and what with the fact that we weren't allowed to collect names in Glasgow, I got lots of reading done on the train to/from Edinburgh or Dundee every day. It was during this time that I managed to convince two of my colleagues that light doesn't actually exist; and that lightbulbs work by sucking darkness out of the room instead. (This is why, when a lightbulb finally breaks, it has a darker, smoky appearance; because it is full of dark! Stars work in a similar way, and become black holes when they're full up.)
Then, a couple of weeks ago, the Oxfam campaign finally ended. I always knew it was only a short-term thing, but it still came as a shock to the system to be back on AICR again, trying to get money. I got yet another day of 0 signups; and I would have quit then if I hadn't been put onto Action on Disability and Development instead. ADD is an amazing charity that works to help disabled people in some of the poorest countries in the world. Although we don't know how many people in these countries are disabled, it's probably greater than in this country (where it's roughly 1 in 10) due to landmines, polio, malnutrition etc etc; and almost all of these disabled people (96%) are unemployed. That's a hell of a lot of unemployment due to disability. ADD works with these people to help them back into society; through education and training, through teaching them how to campaign for changes in legislation for disability rights. It helps the disabled people, and it helps the society too; and once disabled people are in work they can help the local disabled self-help group with their own money - this development is fully sustainable, and if the charity ceased to exist today much of their work would continue.
It may offend some people, but I really don't care much about cancer research. The most common killer in the world is diarrhoea - which is entirely preventable through just having enough food to eat. Aside from childhood cancers (such as leukaemia) and anomolous cases, you need to live for quite a while (avoiding death from all sorts of other, nastier causes) before you stand a chance of dying of cancer. If we spent the amount we spend on cancer research on vaccinating polio instead, we'd save many more deaths and have money to spare. As such, I care much more about ADD than AICR.
Working on ADD, I got a hell of a lot more signups. I even managed to hit my target once(!) And life was good for a while, and I even imagined I might last quite a while as a fundraiser. But even after getting decent scores for a few days in a row, I lacked confidence and was worried about whether I would get the same again. Unfortunately, the job really reinforces your state of mind - if you feel good, people want to talk to you; but if you're worried or anxious, people don't. So my scores started dropping, so I got even more worried, and because I cared so much about the charity I couldn't understand why people in the street didn't. This stress got so much that I was getting headaches every day at work. And that's when I knew it was time to quit.
I don't know what I'm going to do now. But whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it already.
In the last 6-or-so weeks, I've been working as a street fundraiser (or charity mugger if you prefer). It was a crazy, crazy experience, but great fun. I've learned a lot about me, about other people, and about the world in my short stint doing it.
My first week was spent raising money for the Association for International Cancer Research. I was wet behind the ears, I was nervous and (relatively) introverted, and I really didn't do well. We have a target of 0.4 signups-per-hour (and the minimum donation for it to count to our scores is £8 a month). I got 2 signups in 4 days; and later I found that one of them had been a "mystery shopper" on behalf of the regulatory association and that signup wasn't genuine at all. That sucked.
Then I was put onto Oxfam for the I'm in campaign. This was much easier, since we were just collecting people's names and contact details for the campaign rather than getting people to make direct debits or standing orders to charities. I actually enjoyed this work, and what with the fact that we weren't allowed to collect names in Glasgow, I got lots of reading done on the train to/from Edinburgh or Dundee every day. It was during this time that I managed to convince two of my colleagues that light doesn't actually exist; and that lightbulbs work by sucking darkness out of the room instead. (This is why, when a lightbulb finally breaks, it has a darker, smoky appearance; because it is full of dark! Stars work in a similar way, and become black holes when they're full up.)
Then, a couple of weeks ago, the Oxfam campaign finally ended. I always knew it was only a short-term thing, but it still came as a shock to the system to be back on AICR again, trying to get money. I got yet another day of 0 signups; and I would have quit then if I hadn't been put onto Action on Disability and Development instead. ADD is an amazing charity that works to help disabled people in some of the poorest countries in the world. Although we don't know how many people in these countries are disabled, it's probably greater than in this country (where it's roughly 1 in 10) due to landmines, polio, malnutrition etc etc; and almost all of these disabled people (96%) are unemployed. That's a hell of a lot of unemployment due to disability. ADD works with these people to help them back into society; through education and training, through teaching them how to campaign for changes in legislation for disability rights. It helps the disabled people, and it helps the society too; and once disabled people are in work they can help the local disabled self-help group with their own money - this development is fully sustainable, and if the charity ceased to exist today much of their work would continue.
It may offend some people, but I really don't care much about cancer research. The most common killer in the world is diarrhoea - which is entirely preventable through just having enough food to eat. Aside from childhood cancers (such as leukaemia) and anomolous cases, you need to live for quite a while (avoiding death from all sorts of other, nastier causes) before you stand a chance of dying of cancer. If we spent the amount we spend on cancer research on vaccinating polio instead, we'd save many more deaths and have money to spare. As such, I care much more about ADD than AICR.
Working on ADD, I got a hell of a lot more signups. I even managed to hit my target once(!) And life was good for a while, and I even imagined I might last quite a while as a fundraiser. But even after getting decent scores for a few days in a row, I lacked confidence and was worried about whether I would get the same again. Unfortunately, the job really reinforces your state of mind - if you feel good, people want to talk to you; but if you're worried or anxious, people don't. So my scores started dropping, so I got even more worried, and because I cared so much about the charity I couldn't understand why people in the street didn't. This stress got so much that I was getting headaches every day at work. And that's when I knew it was time to quit.
I don't know what I'm going to do now. But whatever it is, I'm looking forward to it already.