Post #187 - Volunteering: Don't Do It!

I'll start by saying that there are clearly a whole bunch of absolutely lovely members of the Baby Boom generation out there, but - I seem to constantly butting heads with them. My mother is a Boomer, which explains a great deal. Many of them seem to have extremely fixed ideas when it comes to autism or disability - my advice is never to shop at M&S unless you want your neurodiverse child/young person shouted at.

During my now eight year hiatus from work I have made various attempts to join clubs and societies. Unfortunately I am not of retirement age and this cases a major problem for some of them. The latest case was yesterday when I went along to the second-hand book hut(!?) to talk members of the Borough's premier park about helping them expand their existing (IMHO: poor) social media presence. I had alway attended their last meeting but found the septegenerian Chair very imperious, brusque and rude to another member. 

One of the members had already failed to ask me whether I'd wanted a coffee and the others looked askance when i pulled out a plastic chair to sit on, so maybe that was also a bad omen. When I raised how well the Instagram platform was working in another Friends group, The Chair shouted "STOP!" loudly at me. Apparently that's acceptable because, and I quote: "she used to be a teacher!" Excuse me!  I picked up my bag and fled in tears.

I immediately found a bench and started off firing off emails/Xs of complaint. I wrote some comments on their Facebook page too, ditto a one star review. One email was to the Borough's main complaints address as all Friends groups sit under the Council's parks department.

I raised it on the other Friends group I'm a member of which sits in the North of the Borough but one woman, whom I'd found to be incredibly rude to me in the past tried to police the group, so I came right back at her and left that group too.

I am now ploughing my own fallow.