I sit here on the stairs ’cause I’d rather be alone

It made me happy when people who wanted to ask Ropecon related non-urgent things from me during the last half a year did contact me via email.

When doing volunteer projects where the whole total working time is tens or hundreds of hours, one of the most important ways to keep oneself motivated and productive, is the possibility to be able to choose, when you work on your projects. I’ve decided not to do them (or paid work) in Facebook.

So I use Facebook for leisure, and for that I rather watch cow videos, read how my friends are doing and participate random discussion about feminism, larping and other interesting topics. (And play Tetris.) Answering or organizing on minor things concerning Ropecon that are not even really my field of expertise or responsibility, and that are no way urgent, don’t fill my definition of leisure. And when event came closer, I had like 20 private non-urgent private messages waiting for me when I get home from work.

I understand exactly how the communication channel misunderstanding grows. First when people start doing event planning and such they’re so excited that all that working just gives them more and more energy, and they’re okay talking about it anywhere and anyplace. When they’ve done that awhile, they realize it’s still cool and awesome, but it also takes energy (novelty is gone), and they again start to value their own time and realize that even though they use their spare time on those projects, working on those projects isn’t really a leisure. But communicating it to others is the hardest part. Making sure which ways of communication are preferred when dealing with volunteer work.

So once more, respect your fellow voluntary workers; larp organizers, convention organizer and such, and check what are the official communication channels they want to use. They’re usually written on the projects’ web page. Then use them. May it be email, phone, WhatsApp, letter, Facebook, IRC and/or what ever, use that/them, don’t come up with the one YOU feel most comfortable!

And as I’ve been talking about minor and non-urgent things this whole message I do realize that sometimes there’re urgent stuff that needs to be taken care of right now. Usually the phone is fastest with urgent matters, but be sure you contact the right person, not the one from the organizers who you know best.

(I’ve dealt with the same communication problem at work before. First I was too eager to deal work stuff also at home, then it took half a year of training and now they know not to contact me except if something is wrong and they really need either my help or permission. And even then, they usually start the phone call by words “I’m sorry I contacted you on your day off, but …”).

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