Today Has Been Good.

{WARNING: this turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be.}

Today I arrived at SENSE, a charity shop situated at the edge of the town centre, armed with my waterproof coat (it was sleeting hard), sensible shoes and a willing smile. I was there, you see, to be shown round before  starting what the manager called a "taster".
Yes, readers (all...one of you); I am now a Trainee Volunteer for the Sense Charity.

The idea came into my head quite a long time ago, as I slouched my way home from another rewarding (*sigh*) cleaning shift. I noticed a beautiful necklace on display in the window of a charity shop - not Sense, but another one - and I popped in to find out how much it was. Finding that it was about £3 more than I would be willing to spend on a second hand necklace, no matter how beautiful it is, I thanked the man manning (ha! pun) the till and left again; but not before I caught sight of the sign posted on the door asking for volunteers.

"Got a few hours a week to spare?" it proclaimed; "Volunteer! An excellent opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people, and even better; to really make a difference!"

'Hmmmm,' thought I. "That sounds like an idea..."

I carried on thinking about it for a while. Working part time, I knew I had time to spare; even if I am the household cook/cleaner, along with being the family's official errand girl and visiting The Grandpapa/The Great Aunt on Tuesdays and Saturdays (a lone visit on the Tuesday and a group gathering of all of us - dog included - for chips and games on the Saturday) and The Grandmama every Friday (to listen to two radio shows and let her spoil the dog). And I knew that it would be useful; it would reaffirm all of my previously learned retail and customer service skills, as well as looking impressive on my CV while I carry on my (seemingly fruitless) search for full time work. And it would be good to get me doing something productive outside of the house during some otherwise free time; I couldn't mope around - and therefore stuff my face - that way.
Despite all that was going for it, however, I hung back.
It wasn't laziness, per say; more a fear of the unknown. Was this idea a mistake? Would the people in whatever charity shop I chose to volunteer at like me? Would they be nice to me, even if they didn't like me? Would I be able to do what was asked of me without buggering up both that and everything surrounding it? If I wasn't very good at whatever it was, would anybody be angry with me? Would I be fired??

So I put it off. And put it off. Until Monday evening, when, impulsively and unexpectedly I sounded mother out about my possibly really stupid idea of volunteering somewhere an afternoon or so a week.

"Great idea!" she enthused; "I think that would be brilliant!"

Hearing someone else agree that it was a good plan (and being reassured that the likelihood of having the hounds set on me - metaphorically. Or at least, hopefully it was - if I moved slower than people would like or broke something) spurred me into action, and the next day I took the bull by the horns and got on with it.
I visited five, walking straight up to the desk and beaming at the person behind it before voicing the following query:

"Hi! I was wondering; how do you go about volunteering here?"

I said exactly the same thing each time. My theory was that by doing this I could gauge the reaction of each shop and make my choice as to which one I thought would suit me best accordingly, and boy; did it work.

The first shop reacted in a very stiff and formal (and not at all happy or enthusiastic) manner,saying little and dismissing me as quickly as possible with an application form (an application form! For a voluntary position!) that I had to fill in - in BLACK BALL POINT PEN, and no other - before the manager would even deign to speak with me. Right-ho.
The second greeted me warmly, but was in a state of disarray of such magnitude - with six members of staff all there at the same time with nothing to do (by their own admission), badly displayed stock (some of which was broken) and a till that somebody had left hanging wide open. And that was just front of house. God knew what was going on in the wings and back stage - that I had the uncomfortable impression that things were a hairs-breadth away from breaking down completely. The smell of cannabis didn't help, either. I was asked if I could come back another day when "the woman who knew what she was doing was in", which I agreed to readily if only to get the heck away from there.
The third greeted me nicely enough - though I was given another application form. Maybe I was wrong to be so surprised - but that didn't feel right either. I can't explain why. It just didn't.
The fourth looked shocked and disapproving, staring at me for what felt like a disproportionate amount of time before informing me curtly that "they were not looking for volunteers at the moment, but thank you for enquiring". In their defense, I noted as I left that they did indeed not have a "volunteers wanted!" sign posted on their door, but I still feel they could have been a littler friendlier about it.

It was the fifth that was the charm. The SENSE Shop. I was greeted by a round and smiley woman with beautifully fluffy dark hair, who exclaimed herself to be "delighted" that I had come in. It was great that I wanted to volunteer: how about I came in for a "taster" session on Friday of this week, just to give me a feel for the place?
I agreed, and we parted on friendly terms, each of us assuring the other that while we meant well we would have forgotten one another's names by then (I had forgotten hers within the five minutes we were talking, to be honest).
Fast forward to today, and I turned up at the appointed time, nervous and wet (damn weather) but sporting my most willing and eager of smiles.
I was ushered upstairs by the manager, who was harassed but nevertheless gracious and welcoming. I would be tagging stock and a young woman called "Jade" (whose name I promptly forgot again) was going to show me what to do, which she did.
I was to check the stock - in this case clothes - to make sure that it was clean and undamaged. If it was, I was to write the label accordingly - size, price etc - and then hang it up before attaching the label with the tagging gun to the left hand of the sleeve/pocket/trouser leg/etc.
It took a few false starts (the tagging gun didn't like me) and a few label rewrites, but eventually my nervous-to-the-point-of-stupid brain got the hang of it and the young woman left me to it so that she could man the till.
There were two other women - and a man called Aman, but he left soon after I got there, so I didn't get a good look at him - doing the same thing I was on the other side of the table. One of them was called Jane, and she was unwell. The other woman offered to walk her home (they declined my offer to order her a taxi. Or an ambulance. She really looked ill) and while she waited for Jane to fetch her coat two other people showed up. One was a man called Paul, who walked in through the fire exit, dumped a bag of curtains on the floor by my feet and called down to the manager - who was running up and down the stairs fetching and carrying and doing other manager-like sorts of things - that he was going to have a cigarette and left again. The other was a short haired woman who was called Barbara, and during a cheerful conversation between her and the blond haired woman that was waiting for Jane, I found out that she had an psychologically abusive ex-husband (who had rung her up to berate her on what would have been their wedding anniversary the day before) and an addiction for collecting ornamental pigs. While they chatted - and I continued to get used to using the tagging gun - several boxes of shoes that were stacked nearby decided to get attention by throwing themselves into the air and dumping their contents all over the floor, making everyone jump out of their skin.
Jane returned, having fetched her coat and bag - she had been sick, which was why she had taken so long - and she and the blond haired woman left. I helped Barbara to put the renegade shoes back into their rightful place, and then she escaped before she could get "roped into another shift".
For a few minutes I was alone, and then Jade (whose name I had forgotten) returned with a mass of black bags that were so full that they were almost bursting. My nerves came back again - she was around my age, maybe a bit younger, and thin and pretty and confident looking - but not for long. I'm not sure what started it, but before I knew it we were chatting away as though...not as though we were old friends, exactly, but as though we had worked alongside each other for years. We compared work experiences, compared notes on   our dysfunctional families, and giggled about the various items of clothing we were tagging. It was great, and apart from aching feet (so much for 'sensible' shoes), I felt completely contented and very much at home.

Two and a half hours later, with my feet not just aching but absolutely screaming at me, I admitted defeat, said goodbye to Jade (after reminding each other of our names) and called it a day. The manager (Christine, as it turned out she was called) beamed at me and asked how I liked it.

"It was great," I replied, truthfully. "I really enjoyed it. I'd like to come back."

"Brilliant!" she sang. "When are you next free?"

We set the date for next Monday afternoon. Before I left, I expressed worry that although I had tried hard, I hadn't got very much done.

"Oh don't bother about that," she assured me; "this kind of work is never-ending. Sometimes I slog it out for days on end and get practically nowhere. It's that sort of work. You just do your bit and make a difference in whatever small way you can. That's all a person can do."

We nodded at each other, and I left. It was 3:30pm. I had been working in the clogged and disarrayed backroom of a shop tagging clothes, work I will not be paid a penny for, alongside a group of people that I had never seen before. And I felt good.

I still feel like that now. And I'm looking forward to next week. That's something that hasn't happened for a long time. A very long time.

Toady has been good.

*smiles*

Alice xxx