The Best of Intentions...

I was cleaning off my desk the other day and came across a Certificate of Appreciation I received in January and it made me laugh (on a day I REALLY needed it) so I thought I would share the story with all of you in case you may need a little laugh.
So here’s the back story to the fateful day…
The UWPC Volunteer Center was invited to speak at a Professional Development Conference at a university that was looking for an interactive and informative presentation on volunteerism. The presentation was supposed to be between one and one and half hours but we didn’t have any training like this on hand so I was told to turn down the offer. However, I felt as the local Volunteer Center, we should make an effort to talk to community members about volunteering and I believed there was worth in developing a basic training so I got to work. Throughout the development I was repeatedly told, especially when I asked for feedback, “don’t worry about that, don’t put too much effort into it, it doesn’t need to be perfect, they're expecting too much, it’s okay to give a 10 minute overview of our services and leave, don’t feel obligated, you can cancel at any time, don’t go stressing yourself out.” But I knew this had worth so I argued my point and stuck to my convictions… and stopped asking for feedback. I persevered like a good VISTA and managed to put together the training in addition to my other, more important work.
The fateful day…
I woke up early and unbelievably arrived at the university a half hour ahead of schedule. I met with the contact person and she set me up in the training room, handed me a sign-in sheet, a stack of evaluation forms and an envelope with a Certificate of Appreciation inside. She then said good-bye and moved on to her next assignment. I stood in the room alone wondering if the upfront certificate made any sense. What if everyone filled out an evaluation saying the presentation was awkward and useless? I put that out of my head and went over my notes. After a while I checked the clock and realized to my dismay that the session was supposed to be starting and I was still alone in the room… maybe the faculty and staff at this university were perpetually late like me? Then I saw someone coming – relief! She walked through the door, looked around and said “I was afraid I was going to be late.”
We struck up a conversation about what may have gone wrong… people on that campus apparently often do run late… the university had decided not to have people pre-register for presentations so I had no idea how many people might be showing up... It was an 8am presentation on volunteerism… There was another presentation happening at the same time… Maybe my proposal on the presentation wasn’t eye catching enough (in my defense, I had written the proposal prior to writing the presentation). After my one participant finished sharing other mishaps about the university not having people pre-register for presentations I gave her some information about the Volunteer Center and ways to get connected to volunteer opportunities and let her off the hook. She thanked me and as she walked out of the room she said “well I guess I’ll sneak into the other presentation, I think there was standing room only.” Afraid of what I lost to, I hesitantly asked “What’s the other presentation.” Smiling apologetically she replied “Protecting yourself against identity theft.” Suddenly not so ashamed about my utter failure I chuckled and waved good-bye.
Lessons learned...
1. Identity theft is more relevant to the general population than volunteerism 2. This one’s stolen and paraphrased... sometimes it’s about the journey not the destination 3. Convictions are great but a sense of humor is a necessity 4. Don’t hand out Certificates of Appreciation BEFORE a presentation… in the end I would prefer if my read “This certificate is presented to Samantha Murphy with appreciation for the most amount of effort ever put into recruiting one volunteer.”