Voluntears

One of the ways that I try to keep from killing myself is to fill up my time with volunteer work.  That way I can delude myself that my pointless life has some purpose: I'm helping others.

CPA is trying to kill me.

I'm losing various opportunities to volunteer.  One organization is under financial pressure from the city, and may not survive.  But another one, directly supporting civic operations, has just taken a big hit.

CPA is, like so many enterprises these days, in financial difficulties of its own.  Business revenues are down across the board, so some businesses are going under, and therefore not paying taxes.  The city has just undergone a huge process of setting the budget, including some rather bizarre concepts such as asking a bunch of seniors on fixed incomes to double their contributions to the city budget.  When the budget was finally passed, those of us who volunteer for Community Policing were relieved to note that our manager's position was *not* eliminated as part of the cost saving ideas.

We breathed too soon.  CPA is obviously still in complete, full-on, frantic panic mode over the economic uncertainties of the next four years.

Yesterday, a few days after the budget was decided, someone came to our boss at the end of the working day, handed him a retirement package, and unceremoniously escorted him to clear out his personal effects and leave.  (I've had a couple of similar dismissals over the years, so I know how much it stings, regardless of any pretense of "cause" for the firing.)

CPA is, of course, being as untransparent as possible over the whole budget process.  I have no idea who instigated the firing.  But *someone* in the city has a truly *spectacular* level of ignorance of volunteer management.  We volunteers have been sent a letter, over the digitzed signature of the chief administrative officer, indicating that our boss is gone, but his job responsibilities have been given to someone else.  (Someone who already has a full workload.  I'm not sure how that is supposed to work out.)  A meeting is announced for Monday (approximately sixty "working" minutes from the time the letter was sent out) at which time we (if we can arrange to attend) will learn more.  (Having attended bureaucratic meetings once or twice before, in my lifetime, I am not sanguine about the probable information density of the meeting.)  I am fairly certain that, at the meeting, *someone* will state that CPA supports and appreciates the work of the Community Policing volunteers.  (I am rather tempted to make up a Bureaucrat Bingo card with phrases that I am certain will be used at the meeting, and distribute it to the other volunteers.)  I am, in fact, rather surprised to note that the *letter* we received makes no mention of appreciation of our service.  And, of course, firing our boss, the person who has been tireless in support of our activities, kind of proves that nobody at CPA *does*, in fact, care about our work on behalf of the community.