Does it matter?

Things have been hectic the past few weeks at work, as we pushed to complete all of our products by the end of the contract year. On Thursday, when I stayed until 10:30p doing "APA Checks," formatting, and printing, trying not to get too frustrated at the fact that the authors of the pieces didn't do all of this themselves, I began to wonder "what does it matter?" I come from a direct service background, only two and a half years, but I've done my time in the field (even if it wasn't homelessness, I feel that human services across all areas have a lot in common) and I wondered if the work that we do will affect the people who we aim to serve?

It's one thing to be at trainings, working directly with providers, but to be sitting in my cushy office checking to make sure that the appendix is in correct APA format? That's another story. We've written some interesting pieces and made some great "contributions to the field" as they say, but it is questionable when the pieces will get out and we don't really have a dissemination plan in place, yet.

I added volunteering to my regular routine because I wanted to be close to the people that I was writing about. I had considered going into direct services more permanently, but the reality is that I'm "too nice," and have a hard time being authoritative. While I did have a sense of accomplishment when we finally put all of the pieces from the year in binders, packed the binders in boxes, and sent my co-worker to the post office, there is a different sense of accomplishment that comes about when people who I've seen at the shelter begin to acknowledge me and engage in conversation. I hope that as I begin to embark on a full scale career that volunteering continues to be a big part of my week, it keeps me from forgetting why I'm in this job and doing this work in the first place.