Motivations in community service
Many years ago, a group was founded by juniors at my workplace. The goal: help others to integrate, organize events so everyone has fun, and represent the interests in workplace politics. It was and is a good idea but the board has a very high turnover with many people coming and going, so there was seldomly the same group of people in charge over a long period of time. Then Covid-19 happened.
With the pandemic, the group almost disintegrated and was then revived by new people - me being one of them. I worked hard to follow the goal of our group: to make our workplace a better place to be. It took more energy than I knew I had, and it took countless sleepless nights. In the end, I think I did help many people to feel more at home and actually have some fun.
After half a year, the problems started. We needed more people helping in the board, so we admitted everyone who showed the slightest bit of interest. The issue: some of the new people started bullying everyone who did not follow their line. With time, everyone either left or became a yes-man to the bully. Well, everyone except me, who became the ultimate target for the whole group. And then it struck me: we were here for entirely different reasons.
For me, working in this group was volunteering for a good cause. I wanted the people that arrived after me to feel more at home, and to have the fun that I didn't have. My normal state of mind is feeling down and empty but I am the typical âfunny friendâ: the depressed person that can't let others feel anything other than good. So I wanted to give people chances that I never had.
For them, working in this group was volunteering for putting it in their résumé. I feel dumb for admitting this, but before they told me that their résumés were their motivation for working in the group, I didn't even know people mentioned things like that in in the résumé. It was not about other people integrating and having fun, it was only about their CVs and finally about control. Representing our member's interests in workplace politics? Completely lost on them.
Now I am stuck in this. Being bullied relentlessly, yet unwilling to leave the group because that would mean on the one hand yielding to the bullies, and on the other giving up the group's goals completely. Today, everything I say or do in the group will immediately be killed off by the person that has climbed the ladder to be our group's president. I think for them, it is not only about the résumé, it is also about having power over people. I am not giving in to that power, and I am the last remaining person to voice dissent and my own ideas.
When I finally realized this, I started to investigate. I asked around and found similar groups in many different places. I talked to people there, and asked them about their motivations. What shocked me was not only their honesty but even more so their pride. So many people were in it not for the common good or for the collective interests but simply for their own rĂ©sumĂ©s and hunger for power. âVolunteeringâ was to them a plain synonym for âgetting some bonus points on my careerâ. The ambitious goals of their groups, and the idea of the common good? A laughable disguise for a place to exercise power.
I feel lost - what has our world come to? Or is it only our society, or even my closer environment? Why are there no people with ideals, why seems âselflessnessâ to be a swear word? Why is an egocentric attitude the only one allowed? I have no answers to any of these questions, but I feel so utterly lost. Am I completely out of my time? I know that there never was a time in the past where my ideals could actually be found in society. I don't dream of any âgood old daysâ but I do dream of a future that is less selfish, less egocentric, and less plain stupid dumb.
Why is it so hard for most people to think of others for a change?