A Different Time A Different Job

My next experience at King's Harvest was on Saturday, March 9th. This time I had a good grasp of where to go and who to talk to in order to get a job. This time I was once again sent down to the basement to work, luckily it was a different job. I was able to work to the equivalent of a check out, however it was done backwards. As the people arrived they were required to check in with me before going in a getting items of clothes. Each person is only allotted so many items of clothing to take with them. As I sat up there I greeted them and told them where things were and how many items they could take with them. Unfortunately, I was unable to have meaningful conversations with the people yet again. However, this visit I did experience something completely new. After cleaning and setting up beds for the night I decided to stay later because I had only gone in the afternoon. While people exited the clothing center I would hand them a blanket for the night, although the blanket wasn't that great they were very thankful. I got to wish them a good night, which was nice. 

During this experience I observed high self-monitoring with myself, and the people at King's Harvest. The times I spoke to the people most of them seemed very reserved, and were constantly making sure not to have anyone else know what they were saying; ironically I noticed myself mimicking their behavior. However, there were a couple that were nice and more outgoing, and those were the ones I was able to have brief conversations with. With the quite people I noticed that they were more careful with what they were saying compared to those that were out going. Personally, I was a bit more considerate with what I was saying; usually my language isn't a problem though, so it wasn't a very hard thing to do. 

While at there I was lucky to be able to move to a new job and see some of the people that come there from a different perspective. I was able to see others there and their high-self monitoring. In conjunction with the others self-monitoring I was able to notice my own. It is very interesting to observe how self-monitoring is dynamic, and hopefully this will help me continue to have high-self monitoring with others. 

My First Trip

        

March 2nd was my first time volunteering for my service project. As I arrived that morning I received directions to go downstairs and work in the clothing areas at King's Harvest. After getting downstairs I met the person who was on of the leaders there. He told me that he was a minister at Heritage Bible Chapel, which was interesting because I have been to Heritage before, although I had been to his church before I didn't recognize him. After chatting he told me what I would be doing, I was really glad I was down stairs that day because it was a lot a more relaxed atmosphere down there. My jobs while volunteering was to take boxes of donated clothes and put them according to gender and age. This task was very simple; as I worked I was able to have little conversations with people. Unfortunately, these conversations weren't anything more than surface level. Then, after everyone left from lunch, the other volunteers and myself cleaned up the area and started to set up for that night. After completing the tasks at hand I went home around 1 o'clock. 

One thing I thought was obvious was, most of the people there were not concerned with time. Which I thought was a depressing thing. For myself I never feel like I have enough time in a day. I believe this is what makes people believe they have a purpose; without chronemics* I would feel very disorganized. It is obvious these people there are not concerned with organization though. The reason I feel that the most of the people their didn't put value on chronemics, is because they walked around lackadaisical without aim. This lack of aim proved to make the process of people getting clothes difficult, because only certain amounts of people were aloud in the shop at one time. 

My first experience at King's Harvest was a successful one. After seeing a fraction of these needy people's lives, I have assessed (from the way the majority of them move around and walk) that there isn't a big importance on time and the management of it. However, I don't blame them. I mean really, what is the point for them caring about time when it doesn't really matter, besides the fact they have to go to shelters at certain times. I do think it is sad but in a way I bet it is freeing to not have to care about the thing that determines how long we are around on this earth for. 

   

Chronemics- one of the 8 nonverbal codes; how humans use and structure time.