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Live United by Erin Haag

I’m slowly starting to come out of the haze of the all-consuming development of the pantry. To follow up on my theme of parenthood from last week, it’s that moment when you get four hours of sleep, so you feel semi-functional enough to realize how dirty your house is. Or in my case, how unorganized my office is and how many emails I have waiting for me.

When my kids were little, my son had a lot of medical appointments that we had to travel for. At the time, my daughter was 2, and my son was under a year. Way too much car time for a 2-year-old that didn’t need to be there, so I was lucky enough to be able to set up drop-in day care for her. It worked wonderfully well for us, so well that when my son “graduated” from his every four-week visits, we decided to do a regular one-day-a week day care for both of them. That was my time to run errands or make those incredibly frustrating calls to the insurance company. I’d always greet these days with enthusiasm. My list would be a mile long. I’d think about the good supper I was going to make and the laundry that was going to get done and — the list would just keep growing. Eventually I’d realize that I’m not that productive, and I’ll maybe cross off one or two things on the list.

I still do this. A day when I’m by myself in the office? I’m going to catch up on those 116 new emails waiting for me, plus the 240 that I have flagged for follow up. I’m going to complete three grant reports, research a new grant proposal, fix the phone voice mail system, and do a request for a proposal on a new service company. Oh, and the dog’s got a grooming appointment at 8 a.m. and the kids need to be picked up by 2:30. So if you see me this weekend, don’t ask me how many emails I have left to get through.

While I might still be overly ambitious for any blocks of unscheduled time, I’ve gotten better at accepting that sometimes things don’t get done. We do the best we can, and we preserve our moments of quiet. We preserve the times that we have to set everything aside and concentrate on the human aspect of our work — lunch with a co-worker, a quick run to grab a smoothie. Even something as simple as transferring the files and documents that got moved to the new office in the laundry basket from home so you can take your laundry basket home can do wonders for your mental state of mind.

Right now, I’m running a program alongside Heidi and Nikolle. That’s not my job though. We’re getting it built up, but I’ll be easing back and getting back into my actual job: human resources, grant writing, grant reports, budgets and campaigning. Like Nikolle says, “Go find us the money so we can keep doing what we’re doing.”

She says that with plenty of sass that falls flat in a written article.

One thing that’s important for me to do though is to hire someone. We’ve developed a core set of volunteers, but we fully recognize that volunteers don’t replace paid staff. Those quiet moments are needed — those vacations are needed, and fall is our busiest time. I’m still developing what that best looks like — because things change so rapidly right now. Currently the idea is that we’ll have a part-time person that is a “floater” program assistant. Currently, they’d be asked to help at Welcome Pantry shifts, but as things level off, they might be moved to another area — Winter Gear Drive, Jingle Holiday Program, etc. Honestly, picking a description is sort of like throwing a dart — if you get the dart on the board, we have a spot for that. That’s not saying that they’d do everything or that the role wouldn’t be clearly defined. It’s just that there’s flexibility in what works based on skill set and schedule, etc. We’ve talked about having a couple people identified as a “paid on call” to help work pantry shifts and then fill in when one of us is gone or ill.

I’ve been to HR trainings that say this is not a best practice — you’re supposed to define the roles first and then hire based on what you need. I’m a big fan of best practices — heck, we built a food shelf around best practices, but sometimes …sometimes you just gotta throw the dart. Find the person that fits generally and then build on their strengths. It’s what I did with my current team, and it’s worked well for us. Maybe that’s a trademark of being so small when there’s multiple roles to be filled. I have faith that we’ll find the right person, someone that fits into our culture.

So, since it’s my “quiet catch up day,” I’ll be in my office trying to figure out why our voice mail turned off and all the rest of those pesky to-do things. In the meantime, interested parties can reach us at 507-373-8670 and we’ll answer the phone as much as we can — or email a resume to director@unitedwayfc.org with “Resume” in the subject line. As always, we’re looking for volunteers, so give us a call if you’re interested in that as well. We thank all of our wonderful volunteers who have taken the time out of their day to unload trucks, direct traffic, welcome shoppers, clean and more. They’ve also sat down and shared meals with us, lifted us up with encouraging words and reminded us of how far we’ve come. Know that in our quiet moments, Nikolle, Heidi and I savor over those words and they’re greatly appreciated.

Erin Haag is the executive director of the United Way of Freeborn County.