Working with hobby groups and in volunteer gigs, it’s just as bad as working a in real life job in some aspects.

A president of one of my organizations only answers about one in three of my email messages. So when he doesn’t answer I don’t know if:

1. He’s too busy to pay attention to it and it’s not a priority, So I should go ahead and do what I think it’s best
2. He has deep thoughts about it and he wants to come back later give me those thoughts
3. He’s annoyed by my question and is shoving it aside and will not answer

So this is déjà vu about my job when I worked. I only got answers from my boss about a quarter of the time.

And then there’s “fading.” While fading wasn’t as popular in the world of pay as it is in the world of volunteers, fading exists in both worlds. I am trying to untangle something that’s been an ongoing problem in my neighborhood association for a few years. Somebody took up the mantle about two years ago to fix it and she was very capable. She outlined her plan. Time went on and she didn’t continue in a particular board role but she was still in the background doing some work. Then apparently about six months ago she faded out and never announced “hey I’m gone now. “

The same issue that she set out to solve is still a problem and it has been made more complicated because we have to figure out work she did and apparently didn’t pass on to anyone else.

I will say this about volunteers and how they need to end their roles: I observed two little elderly ladies who had been quite competent in their lives but their minds were getting weaker. Both of them served as treasurers for two different organizations. Both of them surrendered their treasury duties in very clear ways by saying “I will not do this job any longer “and they relinquished all treasury materials to their organization.

In both cases I took over the treasurers job and it was interesting that the little ladies had been making the same errors – transposing check numbers with dollar amounts in the checkbook log. I think part of this is that these organizations wrote only about three checks a year so it’s not a skill that was often used. But again, they relinquished the job in the way they should. Good for them!

I’m seeing a fair number of little elderly ladies fading away and we can’t get an answer from them to the question “do you quit? “ So their role is not performed and in some cases that is a problem for the organization.