My training

            After the initial rush, I finally got the help I needed to understand what I was to do at the hospital gift shop. It was not as easy as I had hoped sadly. Not only was I supposed to help the customers (which I am fine with doing), I also needed to learn how to make all the things that the gift shop supplied. So for this post I will write about the period of time that it took me to learn all these things. Oddly I learned something about the hospital itself from this less than pleasant time.

            I am not the best with arts and crafts. I have never been and I doubt I ever will. However the volunteer coordinator “forgot” to mention all the tasks I had to do while I was here. If I had known I think I still would have volunteered there, but it would have been nice to know what I was getting myself into.

            My true training started with learning how to make the balloons. Of all the service out there, I get the location that involves balloons and service at the same time. I do not know if that is such a bad thing though. I learned that a lot of the objects being sold had to be hand made in the shop. I do not mean the more complex things, but the simple things like the balloons or the flower arrangements. So they rely on the volunteers to make them.

            The next thing I had to learn was how to make the flowers look presentable. Even though I was sneezing the entire time because of my allergies, I still had to learn how to do it.

            The reason they rely on the volunteers is because there is only one other person at the gift shop if the volunteer is not there. So it is very important that I go every week.

            The next few posts, I admit, will be slightly boring. The pattern I just described is pretty much all that happens at the hospital gift shop.