Down in Bama
I'm going into my third week down South. Things haven't been terribly stressful yet, but that may change by Monday. Our team has been doing very well with very little supervision from our Executive Director who has been focused on the operation we have going in Mississippi. It's made a somewhat difficult at times to try and figure out how to run our operation with so little direction. The good thing has been the people that we're working with here in Alabama have been awesome. Not only have they really supported us, they are going out of there way to make sure we feel welcome and appreciated.
Southern Hospitality has truly been displaced by some many people we've met down here. There have been two volunteers who have made dinners for our group, a Church that made us dinner one night, and one of the women in the Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives brought us snacks for the call center.
Speaking of the call center, I'm the supervisor for the Alabama Volunteer and Donations Hotline. My role mainly consists of training new volunteer operators, helping operators with questions and tough callers, and keeping up-to-date on any new information that should be passed along to our operators. I've also helped out with matching the donations we're getting to organizations and shelters that need the items. Since we haven't been dealing with many callers who were victims of Katrina, I haven't had a lot of opportunities to hear some of the stories these people have. I have had occasion to talk to many friendly voices on the phone who are looking for a way to help, and I've found that just being polite and taking the time listen to anyone on the phone is most of the time enough for them to be friendly back.
Of course, yesterday we were hit with our largest obstacle to date when we were given the role of taking calls from displaced persons looking to relocate to the interim housing that will be setup. Besides leading to tons of last minute planning and problem solving, the potential for a huge increase in call volume means that we won't get a day off this weekend. I think all of us were frustrated because a day off was finally in sight and quickly snatched away from us. It's now been 20 days since the last time I had a day off from AmeriCorps. It seems longer, but as Adam, my roommate keeps saying, each day we work, we're one day closer to a day off. I guess that's the optimistic outlook that we'll have to have in order to stay focused on our task.
So while it's been plenty of long hour days, so far things have been relatively quiet. Of course, this is a disaster so everything can change at a moment's notice.
Southern Hospitality has truly been displaced by some many people we've met down here. There have been two volunteers who have made dinners for our group, a Church that made us dinner one night, and one of the women in the Governor's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives brought us snacks for the call center.
Speaking of the call center, I'm the supervisor for the Alabama Volunteer and Donations Hotline. My role mainly consists of training new volunteer operators, helping operators with questions and tough callers, and keeping up-to-date on any new information that should be passed along to our operators. I've also helped out with matching the donations we're getting to organizations and shelters that need the items. Since we haven't been dealing with many callers who were victims of Katrina, I haven't had a lot of opportunities to hear some of the stories these people have. I have had occasion to talk to many friendly voices on the phone who are looking for a way to help, and I've found that just being polite and taking the time listen to anyone on the phone is most of the time enough for them to be friendly back.
Of course, yesterday we were hit with our largest obstacle to date when we were given the role of taking calls from displaced persons looking to relocate to the interim housing that will be setup. Besides leading to tons of last minute planning and problem solving, the potential for a huge increase in call volume means that we won't get a day off this weekend. I think all of us were frustrated because a day off was finally in sight and quickly snatched away from us. It's now been 20 days since the last time I had a day off from AmeriCorps. It seems longer, but as Adam, my roommate keeps saying, each day we work, we're one day closer to a day off. I guess that's the optimistic outlook that we'll have to have in order to stay focused on our task.
So while it's been plenty of long hour days, so far things have been relatively quiet. Of course, this is a disaster so everything can change at a moment's notice.
posted by Tim Weiss at 10:02 AM
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