Instead of a deluxe apartment, I get to sling raw meat.

Yesterday was the monthly meeting for the sanctuary.  It’s when all the volunteers get together, hear updates from the committee, meet new people, and attend training classes.

It’s also when promotions are handed out.

In June, I thought very hard about applying to be a ML (mid-level) volunteer.  I was high from the freedom of my schedule and enjoying myself immensely out there.  I had been told by GM that the promotion was mine to have whenever I wanted.

I was already doing much ML work – conducting tours, helping guests, training new volunteers and interns, and taking more and more of a leadership role with the enrichment program.  The two biggest things an actual promotion required were 1) cleaning cougars and 2) feeding.

GM and I had talked about this before.  Feeding occurs at dusk, an active time for most animals.  During the summer, this is often the coolest part of the day – an important factor when you’re leaving pounds of meat on a concrete slab.  The animals have the solitude of the night to eat their meal, then cleaning starts around 8am.

During the winter, feeders become scarce because of the short days.  By the time many 9-to-5ers are off work, it’s dark.  He and I had thrown around the idea when I first came back that promoting me and adding me to the feeding rotation would be helpful and also a way for me to keep up hours with the inevitable wacky schedule of classes.

But in June, I took a hard look at my travel schedule and decided not to apply.  It would look shitty to become a ML volunteer and then skip town for weeks.  I was happy where I was.  It still sort of astounds me how the prestige of promotion doesn’t interest me.  It’s a bug that bites almost every volunteer who sticks around.  I guess because I’ve been there, done that it doesn’t appeal.  I think I’ve gained from this by being able to just enjoy my time out there for what it is, not always thinking about the next step.

Skip to Saturday.  It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me – the car wreck, the school situation, the job front.  I hadn’t been out since the Saturday before and then it was with a sprained ankle so I just limped through a tour, did some computer work, and left before lunch.

Before I even got out of the car, I asked GM for my favorite cleaning assignment.  I wanted to get the most out of the day.  He agreed readily.

I ended up having an intern interviewee shadow me.  It’s been raining every day here, and that plus how much concrete jungle has been built around the sanctuary means that the paths are soggy and even underwater.  (The enclosures have land built up during construction.  I’m not saying they’re bone-dry, but for the most part the standing water runs to the paths between the enclosures.)

Basically, this is one of the worst times of the year to volunteer.  Hot, mosquito-ey, and wet.  But I was loving it.

I got called off one cage short of finishing to conduct a tour.  We have a program where people can come and spend the day getting a bit more of a private experience – a general tour, then some time with various guides doing enrichment and operanant conditioning.  They end with getting to watch some of the feeding take place.  I had a group of seven to do their general tour.

When I got done, I met GM in the parking lot, pondering his volunteer schedule for the next few months.  He asked if I had applied for ML.  And when I said no, he asked if I could go write a letter right then.

This is quite possibly the greatest way to get a promotion – have someone ask you to do it.  I hadn’t even been thinking about it.  But I know that I can help more as an ML.  GM really wants me back in the feeding rotation – something that while more responsibility is also somewhat of a treat.

I grabbed a sheet of printer paper, scribbled a note, and voila.  Yesterday I was promoted.

The actual promotion means little to me, except that it will be nice to walk around with the word “Keeper” on my back rather than “Trainee”.  It always felt a tad ridiculous.  But I am extremely happy to know that I’ve managed to return to the sanctuary in a positive way, earn my dues, and be regarded as an asset and a help.  My goal for volunteering is to make a good life for our animals and teach others about them.  I feel like I’m succeeding at that.