The Dangers of Volunteering

     When I was a kid we had two choices, volunteer for a job or be assigned one.  It didn't take us to long to realize that if you were the first to volunteer you usually got your pick of jobs.  This mentality has kept on into my adult life.  I generally volunteer for everything, call me a kiss up, or a brown noser but really I am trying to get the good job and sticking you with the crappy one.  So this year when they started planning our second half safety certification and they asked for volunteers, naturally my hand went up.  Then I was appointed the lead of this team.  Hmmm, I thought, this isn't how this is supposed to go, but since I had already jumped in head first I figured I would go with it.   

     Then on our first call, we came up with some ideas of classes we would like to have and again were asked to volunteer to take one class on to research and again I spoke up first.  Surely I thought this would go better. I volunteered to build a box filled with dirt showing a ground go from one wire to another, this sounded much more interesting than researching standards.  So far so good, I build a dirt box and the other suckers get stuck researching standards,  jumper policies and the like. 

     We have our second call and everything is going great, we are paring down the classes and figuring out logistics and so on.  Then the boss man doesn't ask, he tells me that I will be teaching a class on metering and grounds to go along with the dirt box. What?!?! eeekkk.  Folks let me remind you that I have a little less than 2 years in this department, I am one of about 5 females and I am blonde and polish.  I will be teaching this class to the entire east region construction, not new guys but 30+ year guys who were probably working out here before I was born.  Oh yes, and did I forget to mention I have to create this class?!?! 

     I will have some help from managers, and I am sure to learn a lot from this experience, but to say I am a little nervous about this would be a gross understatement.  I tell this story just in case you have grown up in a household like mine, where volunteering to vacum was much better than being assigned toilet cleaning.  Sometimes volunteering doesn't work out quite the way you planned, be cautious in your hand raising.