Ranting Time...

Hello,

I know I haven't been updating this blog a lot lately. Sorry for that. I need to rant about something. For context, I chair Children's and Teenage Crafts in Open Class at a county fair in Maryland. My mom is one of three co-superintendents of the building. Rant time commence....

Next year, the fair will get one half day from me, not 4. All other days, I will be at work, where I will be treated better, will be appreciated, and where I should have been this year. My 21 years of volunteering in that building meant nothing to them this year. Next year, they won't get my ability to find entries missing ribbons or entry tags that aren't open. I won't be there to help exhibitors find their entries or watch the building. I won't be there to scribe for the mid-week flower show. They won't get any of that from me.

If you treat your volunteers badly, if you chastise them as if they are children multiple times (over things that are non-issues), your volunteers will walk. Your volunteers will go out of their way to not inspire others to help in a building that desperately needs volunteers for fear they will be treated badly, too. If my mom were not a co-superintendent, after this year, I would walk and never look back.

I hate that it has come this. I've never been treated this badly at a fair and I have been volunteering at them since I was 4-years-old. I think people often lose sight of perspective (as they did here) and think that bullying and rudeness will get them the result they want. It might, but there will be unintended consequences, such as this post and me almost walking away.

I am not a pushover. Texas taught me that. But I can't let them bring me down. I have an important job that impacts the health of others. I am better than them. I am better than this fair. I need to focus on being happy in my life and not letting my happiness be dependent on the ill-wishes of people I see one week out of the year.

Cheers