This goes back to the volun-told thing, doesn’t it? I imagine if you ask kids to do something voluntarily, they’ll decline. As parents, you’d have to push them to experience it and maybe they’d like it. Simply going to church is an example: some will stick with it for life and find it a source of inspiration, support, etc. Others will walk away forever once they’re out of the nest.
Unfortunately, people carry the tactic over into adulthood, voluntelling you to donate to charity at work.
For the past year, I’ve volunteered regularly (3x a month). I never volunteered while growing up. The “I want 100% on this United Way drive” at work kinda chaps me, but it’s worth $5 to get them off my back.
Unfortunately, the Peyton Manning United Way SNL skit is no longer available on youtube.
I had to do some work as part of my undergraduate degree (education). It was supposed to increase my experience/sympathy with minorities. I spent the time tutoring a white kid. He needed the help and he was a nice kid, but I have no idea why that fulfilled the requirement. And when I was the new guy, I got strong-armed twice into running the United Way program at work.
My kids had to do “volunteer” work for their school. They both spent it picking up trash in parks. And my daughter did some volunteer work for confirmation. She did get something out of it - they were cleaning up beside the road, and they found two one-hundred dollar bills.
The only pink slip my father ever got in pilot training was when he did not allocate money from his paycheck to the United Way. Other than that, he finished number 1 in his class.
My old company did a couple volunteer days, but they were days that we were given off from work with the expectation that we would go do the community service project that they’d picked out for that year. I suppose one could have refused and stayed at work instead, but they were mostly fun days helping worthwhile causes. They didn’t expect us to give up our weekend or vacation time to do community service… probably mostly because the president of the company wouldn’t have given up a Saturday of golfing for it so he wouldn’t have expected the rest of us to give up a Saturday either.
At my current company we have the United Way thing (although we’re only up to 75% participation… oh, the shame), and they do “strongly encourage” participation, but there are not-horrible ways to participate. For example, you can pay $25/month for 2 months to get to wear jeans during those two months. (Normally we’re business casual.) Since those two months are Dec and Jan, and it gets darned cold and snowy here, most people opt to donate and get to wear jeans. So it’s not as awful as it could be.
Isn’t it lucky that some of the younger ones posting on this thread have decided not to get old,aqquire permament physical or mental disabilities or go bankrupt as the people they so bitterly resented giving so little of their time to obviously decided that they would.
Personally I’m not religious but on this occassion I pray that some of you later on in life get to have a nice long learning experience about what these poor sods have to go through.
I am lucky enough not to have endured those downers yet and hopefully I never will but I dont get all smug and self congratulatory about that fact,stuff like that can happen to anybody at any time without any notice and yes it can even happen to you. with a fair amount of statistical chance no matter how much more superior you seem to judge yourselves to be above ordinary mortals.
He needed the help and he was a nice kid, but I have no idea why that fulfilled the requirement. And when I was the new guy, I got strong-armed twice into running the United Way program at work.