Location: Open Door Shelter
Date: Monday, June 03, 2013; 6:45-8:30 pm
I had received an email from
Wendy asking if I would be available to attend this session since we had a
first time leader in Chris and having someone experienced would help his
confidence. I changed from my existing
project and arrived at ODS way earlier than usual and saw that Chris was already there. I was
chatting with them when I heard another volunteer buzz in and it was none other
than Wilson. He said it was his first
visit to this program and I told Chris that he was really a spy from Chicago
Cares, sent to observe Chris on his first day as a leader! We got some other folks, Fahad and Aly, who
used to work with Chicago Cares and was now attending as a volunteer. We chatted till it was time to go upstairs and
since this was a project that I had done and Wilson had not, I told him to
watch and learn!
 |
| Wilson is the 'Riddler'! |
We went upstairs and I spotted my
buddy Kallie amongst others who were watching TV. Kallie was playing with a baby and greeted me
like an old friend. We got around the
table with all the young men and women and when it came time for introduction,
I asked Kallie to introduce me. In fact,
she was wearing a nametag saying, “Ritesh’s
Best Friend”. As an ice breaker,
Chris gave us colored pens – both Kallie and I picked violet – and asked us all
to draw our ideal job. This was an
interesting one and I thought about what I would want for myself. I always wanted to be a writer and while I
can write as a hobby, it would be fabulous if someone paid me to do it. So I drew a laptop – or something that looked
like it – and some pages. Others around
me were busy at it and soon we were asked to reveal our drawings. One guy wanted to be a construction engineer
and so had drawn construction machinery.
Kallie had filled up her entire page to depict a psychologist counseling
the kids in school. It was brilliant and
afterwards and I asked if I could keep it for my wall. She said I could as long as she could keep
mine. Some of the other interesting ones
were Fahad drawing himself as the Mayor of Atlanta, Aly showing herself working
in a non-profit, and others as either a sports journalist, a caterer in ‘Goose Island Brewery’ or as a
Professor. One girl had a picture of a
person shooting someone and then a gravestone.
She said that she wanted to be a cop, though it looked more like an
Undertaker. Wilson had drawn a question
mark and while I asked if he wanted to be the ‘Riddler’, he said that one of his friends was in Fermi labs and
Wilson wanted to be like him and understand the Universe. I said that Wilson would be one to finally
come up with the ‘Grand Unification
Theory’. But the best picture was a
guy who drew himself as a surgeon and had a big heart on the picture. He said that his grandfather has a heart
condition and that he wants to help.
Chris challenged us all to find a better story, but there really wasn’t
any.
Next, Chris had a behavioral exercise
with situations that may arise on a job and how people may and should react to
it. Initially he wanted us to break into
groups, but one of the residents suggested that we do it together as a group,
so we can share our thoughts - a very wise suggestion. It was a case study about you working at a
grocery store and how you would deal with a colleague in different
situations. The first was the co-worker
only doing what he was told and if that was good or bad. There were different opinions on this ranging
from one person saying the co-worker should go above and beyond what he has
been told, to another saying that if he offers to do more, that are more
chances to screw up, and so it is better to fly under the radar. Many supported the ‘doing more’ approach and
I said that we really do not know the entire story. Perhaps the boss wasn’t treating this
employee well and he had been passed over for promotion several times. If so, the question my co-worker needed to ask
himself is whether he should stick around for a dead-end job or go somewhere
else where he would be challenged and allowed to grow. The next question was the co-worker hearing a
private conversation and telling everyone else about it. One of the residents said that there should
be no “personal” talk in the office
and if you do so, you risk others overhearing.
Wilson said that we were missing the main point here, which is can we
trust this co-worker now with information. I agreed with Wilson, since we were trying to evaluate this from a professional point of view. Final point of discussion was how the
supervisor should deal with a person like this.
I said that it really depends on how many warnings or how much coaching this
person has already received. I said
shame on any supervisor who either does not give a warning or who turns a blind
eye towards everything.
This had been a healthy
discussion and next Chris wanted us to work individually with the residents in
doing self-evaluation. Kallie wanted to
work with me, but I told her to pair with Wilson since we had already done some
things together the previous time. I was
paired with Sylvia and I gave her a ‘Work Ethic’ form which had questions
such as, “I always get to work on
time. If I am going to be late, I call
and let my boss know” and “I work
hard as I can” and multiple choice answers such as, “Always”, “Sometimes” and “Never”. I asked her to fill out her answers and I did
the same. We went through her ratings
and her explanation for each and I said that in some cases she was being hard
on herself. I coached her on teamwork
and how on most jobs teamwork is more valued than being an individual
contributor.
Next was Resume review and Kallie had joined us for this one. We looked at
both of their resumes together and since they each had something good and some
areas for improvement, I tried to point them out as a comparison. I said that while Sylvia’s objective was
better framed than Kallie’s, her rest of the content could do with some
improvement. When I asked her to move
some things around, she called me out on my previous advice and how she had
formatted accordingly. “Touché!” We polished both the resumes and I also
looked at Kallie’s cover letter. Before
leaving we worked on some of Sylvia’s job questions and she had done a good
job on the answers such as “What
motivates you”, where she had said “Growth
as a team”. She was apparently
paying attention to our coaching and using the time productively.
As we packed up to leave, Kallie told me to come back soon and I gave her a high-five. Downstairs, Chris asked us for feedback and
most of the volunteers said that he should send them some material in advance
so that they can be better prepared, not that anyone had done a poor job. I thought that he had done a very commendable
job and looks like ODS has found another good leader to compliment Claire. No wonder this is one of my favorite
programs.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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