People who don’t do regular volunteer work don’t get it

[GoldenGeishaGirl]

’it’s only volunteer work’ ‘it doesn’t matter if you don’t go in’ ‘someone else will cover’ ‘can’t you just say you’re sick’

Volunteer work is work. You have to be reliable. There’s very few people who can cover for you. If you can’t go, or don’t show up, it matters. I can take the odd day off like any job but I can’t be doing this every second week - it wouldn’t be fair on the animals I work with or the other volunteers.

Agree with this.

Many hugely important organisations rely on volunteers. I suppose the ‘luxury’ comment is referring to having the time and the means to be able to do it. For example, when my children were younger, we could only afford childcare for the hours we were in our full time paid jobs. We literally would not have been able to pay childcare for volunteering hours.

now the children are grown up, I have the luxury of time to volunteer without incurring costs, as well as doing paid work.