friend too obese for volunteer role....how to explain not suitable....!

[earsup]

A volunteer role has popped up at our local fabric recycle centre, people and shops donate rolls and bits, we sort it out and price it up and put on shelves. not a lot of space between shelves and lots of crawling around on floor to retrieve bits and bending. Obese ...sort of friend wants to join us, she is very thick skinned and quite self entitled, I was just thinking of saying that you need to be quite agile for the role and say no more....She wouldn't be able to get between the shelves and wouldn't be able to bend down etc.

Friend of a friend. Does everybody have to give a full life history now?

The first word OP typed was

friend?

weird if the person is not a friend, don’t you think?

Acquaintance?
Someone known to me?

She spends time at this friend of friends house, goes walking with her.

She actually said obese....sort of friend so that tells me she's someone she knows not really a friend

Yet she visits her in her home? 🤔

MNers so often say ‘friend’ when they mean ‘acquaintance’, or even a downright CF they happen to know.,

I think you need to be very careful when choosing volunteers, IME volunteers often think they can do as little as they like and everyone should be happy with that as they're doing it for free - this is obviously spectacularly unhelpful.

I once was part of a play scheme where I was the only paid person - I was also pretty much the only person who did anything as the volunteers just wanted to sit around and chat and didn't want me giving them orders (ie didn't want me asking them to do anything). I hadn't had anything to do with their selection and they were friends and relations of the person who had organised the scheme so it was all very difficult.

This acquaintance sounds like a nightmare all round. I'd tell her there's an interview process including a trial shift and then take it from there. Advertise the position well so that she's (hopefully) not the only candidate.

Doesn’t make sense to me, but Mn is full of posters who see absolutely nothing strange about the fact that in a thread entitled ‘AIBU about my friend?’ they proceed to post a tirade of criticism of someone they clearly don’t like very much.

‘Friend’ for a significant minority of Mners seems to mean ‘someone I vaguely know because she works with my cousin and sometimes comes on nights out’.

do they?

whys that then?

I've just wasted several comments on a troll whose post has just been withdrawn and am now feeling somewhat suspicious about this one

@VisionsOfSplendour the assumption is that she can't manage because she's fat. Does the OP really know this woman that well.

Strikes me that being fat is one of the few things that isn't protected by law (although protected is a very loose description sometimes).

No idea, but I’ve noticed it, too. Someone will post about their irritation about something a ‘friend’ has said or done or posted on SM, and responses will say ‘It seems like a small thing to want to end a good friendship over’, and it will emerge that this ‘friend’ is an acquaintance the OP has met in the flesh a handful of times in a large group on a night out, and follows on social media, but has never actually had a conversation with.

I assume it’s also this kind of nonsense that fuels the idea also common among a different subset of Mners, that they don’t want friends because ‘it’s too much drama’.

@earsup - I don't have anything to add to the discussion - I think previous posters' suggestions of a trial shift are the best option.

But I love the idea of a fabric recycling centre! I wish there was one near me, because I have fabric I could donate (bought for projects that never happened), and dh would be happy if my fabric purchases were offset by some leaving the house!

It's not hoarding, though - not if it's fabric. Or yarn. Or books. 😳😂

I wouldn't want to volunteer for a charity that discriminates on the size of candidates, doubt there's a long waiting list of slim folks who want to give up their own time anyway.

@Port1aCastis , turning a candidate down because of their inability to do the role is not the same as discrimination per se.

This, jesus does no one have people in their network of friends who arent friends as such but part of the group and actually if it was just you and this person they wouldnt be in your friendship network but because of the group, you're around her or hang out with her in the group

Friend for shorthand

Invite hey for a trial shift, she’ll either amaze you with her agility or decide it’s not right for her. Or, not turn up at all!

Well you probably don't need to say anything, she's probably read exactly what you think here on MN. You say she can be 'vile' ... I think the way you have insulted her to the entire internet, possibly including her and/ or her loved ones, is pretty vile!

That you visit in their own home…..?

she can have outbursts and be immature, very rude, vile and obnoxious

this is just as relevant as her physical size.

I refer you back to my previous post. Send her the publicly available recruitment stuff that you'd send a stranger. Opt out of the recruitment yourself, due to potential conflict of interest. Have a quiet word with the other two people involved in the recruitment about your concerns about the above. ZERO need to bring her size or physical ability into it.

In fact I worded that badly - it is far more relevant than her size.

In your experience her qualities don't make her a good team player. I'm pretty sure that's in your person spec.

No need to bring her size into it.

They don't have brooms where you volunteer?

Yes probably, people gather round each others homes, pop in for a coffee as a group or a couple of them, OP might get tagged into it or perhaps she gets on with her sometimes to a low level but isnt overly keen. Only on this site are relationships so black and white.

A person the OP clearly dislikes and she goes “hanging out” at this persons home…. Even though she’s not a friend…. Yeah right!

How big is she that she can't fit between shelves? I'm a size 20 and pretty agile. Perfectly capable of squeezing into the gully behind shelf units and even climbing through them if I have to.

How dare you?! There are other reasons someone can be overweight! I'm obese because I have to take a lot of prescribed steroids. I come off them every 12 months for 3 months and always drop dramatic amounts of weight whilst I'm off them! Don't be so god damn judgmental