Trying to Help Charity Orgs Can Hurt

[ebonyknight]

/\/\/\/\/\
Why did you put up with that? If it wasn't appreciated, I would have just walked out.

[Damien]

under contract, and looking for something better ... i cannot afford to be out of work...

(and as mentioned, i did find something better)

[earl colby pottinger]

I think

under contract, and looking for something better ... i cannot afford to be out of work...)

I think it was meant why you put up with the church members? I understand you were under contract with the school, but the first time someone said something like that in a church I was doing charity work for I would walk. And I would make it very clear to all other members why I was doing it too!

[bainsidhe]

Damien, I agree with the other posters. I think I read some of your story on another thread and these people were some of the most abusive, disturbing idiots I've read about. After a couple comments like you mention, my brain would have siezed in shock. Then I would have told that ass, whether customer, priest or actual saint, that such a comment was the most vile, venomous filth I've ever heard spewed from someone in a position of respect and decency and I hope the hurt they've dealt visits upon them five-fold. I don't think I could have even swore at them, because my brain would have stopped working. That, and anything I would say would be hard to strangle past the tears as I ran from the room.

I'm glad to hear you're in a happier place. NO ONE, not even the asshats on this site, should be told something so disgusting. Shame shame on them.

[Damien]

the problem was that the church and the school were more or less interlinked - and a word from the clergy could have made them possibly lie, make me lose my job when I could not afford to...where I honoured the contract, I was not convince that they would have....

for a long time my brain did stop working, socially at least.

I am working in aplace now taht is pretty much the exact opposite to there.

[Seshat]

Also, in rural Australia, communities are very, very small and VERY far apart. It's difficult to explain to people who don't understand Australia just how small and far apart our rural communities can be.

In the farming belt on the west side of the Great Dividing Range, communities are often four hours driving apart, and some of those are so small that on the main road, there's one service station/post office/general store, one pub/hotel/social hall, one church and one school, possibly in the same building. Maybe a couple of residences.

In the farming district in the south-east corner, the rural communities are larger than that - but with only a few exceptions, would be called 'villages' in any other country. The south-west corner may be similar, but that farming region is much smaller. The east side of the Great Dividing Range also has larger and closer communities than the west side - some are a mere two hours apart at highway speeds.

But by far the largest part of the country is the real Outback. And if he was there, think of a desert equivalent to the Canadian wilds, or to Siberia. The isolation of the Outback communities is pretty close to those.

If he was stuck working at the school in one of the smaller and more isolated communities, then angering the most powerful members of the community would have left him socially ostracised by his only possible face-to-face social network. Even if he was in a relatively larger community, or one which was less isolated, he'd still be cutting himself off from a large proportion of his possible social network.

At that stage, none of his choices were good ones.

[Boozy]

What you said about small towns and isolated communities was dead-on, Seshat.

My sister's cafe operated at a loss for the first two years it was open (common in the restaurant industry) but we donated to every single charity that asked. We had to in order to keep a good relationship with the community.

No one could afford to be labeled as the person or business that said no to the Boy Scouts.

Thankfully, no charity ever took advantage of us or made us feel that what we could afford to give in way of time or money was inadequate. But if they had, it wouldn't have made a difference - unfortunately, it would have been the cost of doing business in a small town.