Weirding out the employees

Pentacle
from clker.com

While I was volunteering today, a patron managed to weird out an employee. It may have been my
fault. :)

I always wear my pentacle pendant, though it isn't always visible. If I'm wearing something the pent doesn't look good with, I keep it under my clothing. But I had it visible today, and it caught a woman's attention after I'd been helping her for maybe a minute. "Oh, I hadn't noticed your necklace before."

She looked at me a little warily. Not a "You baby eating devil worshiper evil Satanist horrible person...etc. etc." wary, but more of a trying to take my measure and figure me out. I didn't want to miss what could potentially be a good conversation with someone who I had already guessed to be another Pagan, so after a minute of wondering what to say I offered "It's interesting the different responses I get to it. Some people know what it is, but others ask about it."

"Do you know what it is?" She asked. "Yeah. It's a pentacle." Usually I'll mention it's Pagan, but I don't think I did this time. I figured it wasn't necessary.

We said a few other things, and it ended with her saying "It's good for people to know what they're doing." From her tone, I figured that she had decided that I was ok. I finished helping her and she left.

(At this point, when I was telling my boyfriend the story, he said "Aw, she wanted to make sure you weren't a fluffy bunny!")

Now, enter the employee, who had been standing right there the whole time. Her opinion was: "That was weird." When I disagreed she pointed out "But what was up with her saying that it's good to know what you're doing?" I tried to explain, "She was Pagan. She saw my pentacle and wanted to know if I actually know what I'm doing. It's not the first time I've been questioned by someone a bit older than me. She wanted to make sure that I'm not a fluffy bunny."

"But fluffy bunnies are cute!"

I pondered whether I should try to explain properly about Pagans and our attitudes towards what we term "fluffy bunnies." I concluded that although she is the type of person I could probably discuss Paganism with, the time and place were wrong. So I just told her that fluffy bunnies are people who don't really know what they're doing.

It's interesting to be questioned by someone who's trying to figure out if I'm full of fluff. I think I've passed inspection both times it's happened now.

Note: I sort of wonder now whether I should have told the employee that the patron is Pagan, since the woman didn't actually out herself in a way obvious to anyone who isn't already clued in...? Thoughts, anyone?

Why I volunteer

I started my volunteer work again, after about two months of unemployment.

Since figuring out that my schedule is pretty much open, the place I volunteer at started asking me to take some random shifts that needed to be filled. It seems I may have a regular time to volunteer weekly now, which is awesome. I have also become an on call volunteer, which means I don't mind them asking me to come in if someone calls in sick.

I'm only doing one or two days a week, and each shift is three hours. It isn't much, but someone has told me that I'm giving enough of my time that I ought to get paid for it. Their opinion has made me think of all the reasons I volunteer.

1) It can look good on a resume
2) It's good experience that might help me in future jobs

These are the two reasons I would hand over to the doubters, but volunteering goes beyond that.

3) It gives me something to do
4) I like the people
5) I love the place
6) It's good to feel useful
7) Sometimes it feels good to give something without expecting anything (in monetary terms) back

I admit that it certainly would be awesome to get paid for what I'm doing as a volunteer. But it wouldn't be called volunteering then, would it? Also, reason #7 would disappear if they started paying me. (Not that I would refuse a job if offered one...)

Do you volunteer, or have you volunteered before? What were your reasons? Were they the same as mine, or different?