Taking on a Larger Role...

Yogi, my last Y Pup is gonna be adopted, after 6 months of searching for the right one.

"Hi, I'm gentle giant Yogi."

And here are my 5 other Y pups' baby photos:

(Found in industrial estate in Yishun; that explains why their names start with letter "Y")

Yumi

York

Yuna, my favourite! Sweetest feminine girl.

Yoshi, handsome charismatic guy

Yuko, naughty little fellow

Yuri

Don't ask me why these siblings have distinctly different patches of colours! I've never met their mum and dad. :D


As I got more experienced with the procedures, it became time to guide others. Coach newbies at adoption booth, let them tag along for house visits, show them how to acquire and employ CSI skills in stratifying potential adopters/fosterers, and then investigating them. Then I became a dog consultant; I collated advice from experienced adopters/fosterers on mainly how to correct dogs' behavior and shared them with the amateurs. Subsequently, my role changed from being encouraged to now encouraging and appreciating people. It was so gradual I didn't realise it.

Then one fine day, I was assigned to take charge of a batch of dogs, manage and track their health and adoption statuses, which was dreadful for me as all the tedious coordination and texting are so painful. And this is on top of my groundwork - house visits, matching dogs to the potential fosterers, bringing dogs over to their potential homes and signing adoption agreement with fosterers/adopters. 

Fosterers and Adopters soon became friends. They started to text, update and send me cute pics of their dogs. Don't be mistaken; they are definitely the nicest and the most humble people I've ever met and I love them.;) 

(So now u know over the past year why I have been replying almost instantly to your texts, my friends.) 

Another fine day came; I acquiesced to a request of doing some admin work for the organization and unspokenly, I became a main committee member. 

Needless to say, more sacrifices have to be made. Sacrifices like supporting as many events as I could, be it charity events, training sessions, or merely cohesive gatherings with new volunteers.

I'm unwilling to take on a bigger role... This is not what I intended for. 

I am still reluctant to go all out, which means going for meetings, putting in all my energy and time to save as many street dogs, and basically be the spine of the organization.

I love the groundwork I'm doing, and I'm unwilling to be "greater" than that. Managing people is a headache, and this is especially managing a group of volunteers who come from different walks of life and in their 20s and 30s, who have formed their perceptions of how the world is like. And I tell you it's never easy...

At least in a healthcare setting, people don't really differ very much. My colleagues are usually Science people, less artistic and more logical.

Some volunteers are weird, so weird. Okay I won't say weird but u know right, some of them are "different" from the others and can't really fit into the society. I'm not talking about wallflowers ya; it is just some people who volunteer because they are very very lonely having being shunned by people around them. 

The cruelty of society. Who has the right to decide what a social norm is anyway?

Demographics of rehoming volunteers in general:

90% female, 70% single and 30% weird.

Demographics of shelter volunteers:

80% male, 80% single, 40% looking for girlfriend (flirtatious) and again 30% weird.

Have you ever read from a book that if u want to test your ability to be a leader, go and manage a group of volunteers? Volunteers have no obligations to help you as they are not motivated by monetary gains, or really any potential benefits. They basically don't owe you anything. Hence, if this group of volunteers is more than willing to follow your lead, then truly you have succeeded as a leader.

Voluntary animal welfare organizations if not careful can wind up heavily in debt, or be desperately pushing its few volunteers to foster 6 rescued dogs each. True stories. Scaryyyy.

 I hate politics. Yep you know it. I go wherever peace goes. So sheltered from politics in my workplace that now I don't know how to deal with them.

One more demographic to some volunteers: they are extremely difficult to work with. :(

So eh, you can imagine how those meetings are like. Lol. 

So ... Maybe one day I'll go all out to manage people, go for meetings and give my opinions and support to make a collective deliberation with the team. Till then I'll just be happy where I am. A "dating agency" person who matches dog's profile to the adopter's', being 24/7 for fosterers and adopters, and giving guidance to the newbies.:)

Maybe one day...