Day 9- Analysis Paralysis
Photo Credit: Bjorn Fran Tjorn
The altruistic adrenaline that propelled me during my first two months volunteering at the Food Bank hasn’t been tamped down so far that I don’t look forward to my Wednesday shift, but this week really felt like work.
We got what I thought was the biggest and most confusing Trader Joe’s delivery so far – boxes filled to the brim with so many items – some staples, others exotic- that it made me question whether people had stopped shopping there for a few weeks.
I was put in charge of getting most of it out and onto the tables for clients to choose from or stored in back stock. We were short on volunteers and the paid staff members had to leave for a meeting across town.
Two people, 12 boxes and a swirl of questions. Among them:
- Do clients really want plastic boxes of Chinese pea shoots?
- Why is the new volunteer going so much faster than me?
- What to do with 20 packages of spiced stir-fry Asian vegetables, a hybrid of loose produce placed in boxes and ready-made salads that chill on ice while the clients shop?
- How stupid was I to wear a brand-new blush colored T-shirt, now bloodied with raspberry juice leaking from broken cartons?
Even at the Food Bank, I sometimes encounter the question I used to encounter in my day-to-day “real job” when there was too much to do tainted by shades of confusion:
Where to start?
Even this summer without a 40 + hour week job I have this. Whether it’s trying to get the perfect lead on an article before I know what I am really writing about, determining whether I should put a lot or little effort into a cover letter based on my qualifications and the laundry list of the “the ideal candidate,” or if the garden first needs weeding or watering, it’s a disturbing stall.
At the Food Bank it’s worse as the pace is fast, and it often goes hand-in-hand with food classification.
For example, we got a surfeit of chives that were just starting to go this side of slime. Because they were cylinder-shaped and small, and I assumed most clients didn’t know what to do with them, would they go with other produce I assumed most clients didn’t know what to do with – small, hook-shaped Japanese eggplant?
I decided to move onto something easier as I considered the chives’ placement. The purple frosted Champagne grapes, not much bigger than caviar, could go into a box with other fruit clients would eat in bunches instead of in one piece, but they weren’t as filling as the plump green table kind, so did they really belong with cherries?
This over-analysis had delayed me from filling cans for the Family Boxes at other times too.
Manwich mix has no meat in it, but what is it really?
“It’s tomato-based,” the program manager pointed out, “so put it with the tomatoes.”
But is it as versatile as a can of diced ones, which could be used in stews, pasta sauces, or sprinkled over a quesadilla?, I thought as I twirled the can in my hand.
I could ask questions of the very busy skeleton staff, but I like to problem-solve myself.
My internal manager, when I want to quiet her over an article, job description or weeding, can go chill on the patio with a glass of Rosé and a magazine when she gets too loud and if she isn’t too pressed for time. But here and now, the new volunteer was looking to me for the answers amidst the strewn boxes.
Some of the more seasoned volunteers say just dive right in and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
“It’s not like they are going to dock your paycheck,” some volunteers will laugh.
But I always want to do things right the first time.
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