Societies are made up of people and people help people. If it weren’t for volunteers, many a community wouldn’t be what it is today. But like everything else in life, times change and so do volunteers. Volunteers used to be considered the biggest benefit to an organization or a community but now, sometimes volunteers can be considered a burden.

The Volunteer Scene in Calgary and Alberta
Alberta isn’t quite “volunteer capital” of Canada but it’s a very close second to Saskatchewan. In a recent survey titled “Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians: Highlights from the 2000 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating,” it was reported that 700,000 people volunteered 120 million hours in one year in Alberta. Loosely translated, Alberta averages approximately 200 hours per volunteer per year, which works out to be about 8.33 days per year. Now that’s a lot of volunteering!

Who Volunteers
The survey revealed 4 out of 10 people volunteer “formally”. This means a person approaches an organization and offers to volunteer for a certain position or offers to volunteer a certain amount of time on a regular, on-going basis. Three out of 10 people volunteer “informally”. This means people volunteer spontaneously. For example, if a person is asked and agrees to volunteer for one specific task, only one time per year, this person is considered to volunteer “informally”. In Calgary, the survey revealed that 7 out of 10 people over the age of 15 have performed some type of volunteer work, whether it was formal or informal. Surprisingly, the survey revealed that 2 out of 3 volunteers are employed, which eliminates the notion that people who work do not have time to volunteer. More Calgarians volunteer, and volunteer more hours, than Edmontonians do. “Calgary’s volunteer presence seems stronger than Edmonton’s because Calgary has a central place that refers large numbers of volunteers to non-profit organizations, called Volunteer Calgary. Edmonton’s volunteer center closed two years ago due to funding issues,” said Dawn Lasby, Manager of Volunteer Services at Volunteer Calgary.

Before You Volunteer
These statistics are impressive but people must remember that it’s a privilege to be a volunteer and each volunteer position brings with it accountability and responsibility. Having a “love” of something is great motivation, often assisting people in choosing where they want to volunteer, but people must remember that other people are counting on them to carry out the tasks they volunteered to do. If a person wants to volunteer for unskilled positions, such as painting fences, picking up litter, and setting up rummage sales, then no special skills, experience, or education is required, just a willing spirit and a desire to pitch in and help the community. If a person wants to volunteer for a position that does require special skills, experience, or education, such as an accountant, legal advisor or area planner, the person should make sure they clearly understand the duties of the position, know whether or not they are capable of carrying out the duties, and know whether or not they actually have the time to perform the duties, as the people who volunteer for these positions will be held accountable for their actions.

Why Some People Volunteer
Some people volunteer because they really want to help other people or they want to pitch in to make their communities better places to live in. If it weren’t for the tireless efforts of countless volunteers, a lot of things simply would not exist, things that most of us take for granted and that we think either the government or a corporate sponsor paid for. Volunteers are truly gifts from heaven and should be thanked graciously for their hard work.

There are also people who volunteer because it’s a requirement of a goal. People who want to switch careers sometimes do volunteer work to gain new skills or experience, which employers will accept on a job application. Or as in the case of students, they know educational institutions and employers look for volunteer work on their applications because it shows they are community-minded individuals. People also volunteer because a judge has ordered them to perform community service work as part of their sentence and a select few people volunteer because they have self-serving motivation to make themselves look good.

Most people who volunteer are generally good-hearted people with the best intentions but the people who feel obligated to volunteer, are forced to volunteer, or volunteer to make themselves look good, may not put their “heart and soul” into their volunteer duties, leaving the other volunteers performing the lion’s share of the work. The attitudes of these volunteers can also have devastating effects on the spirit of the other volunteers.

The Cornerstone of Good Volunteers
Why is it that when people apply for a paying job, they have to go through the Spanish Inquisition – provide a resume which details their education, skills and experience, a list of references, and sometimes identification such as their Social Insurance Numbers, birth certificates and driver’s licenses? Although well-run organizations put potential volunteers through intensive screening procedures and interview review processing, many non-profit organizations are so thankful someone actually volunteered that they practically hand the job to them without so much as a “What’s your name?” Good volunteers as just like good employees – they are hard to come by. Productive volunteers are no accident either. “Organizations who rely on volunteers will do well to have a well-trained, experienced volunteer manager. The duties of a volunteer manager are: to review job descriptions and hold interviews to recruit qualified volunteers; orient and train new volunteers; motivate current and new volunteers; evaluate the volunteer’s performance on a regular basis; keep appropriate records of volunteers; and to show appreciation to all volunteers. Volunteer Calgary offers many courses and they can even teach a volunteer manager how to dismiss a volunteer, if necessary,” said Lasby.

The Downside to Volunteering – Volunteer Burnout
The survey clearly showed that the number of people who volunteer, and the number of hours they volunteer, dropped in 2000. What the survey failed to do is identify the reasons for the drop in numbers. Could it be a case of volunteer burnout? As in any organization, whether it is a not-for-profit or a for-profit, it is usually the select few that do the bulk of the work. It’s similar to the 80/20 rule where 80% of a company’s business comes from 20% of its clients. In a volunteer organization, 20% of the volunteers could be doing 80% of the work. After awhile, these volunteers get tired of doing all the work all the time, and eventually they burn-out and stop volunteering. If there is no one else to fill their shoes, then the work goes undone, and people and organizations suffer. Many people who volunteer complain that shortly after they volunteered to do one thing, they were quickly commandeered into volunteering for something else, usually entire positions, sometimes two. Soon, this person starts to drown in volunteer work and again suffers from burnout. Many volunteers feel they are not shown the level of respect or appreciation they deserve. If a volunteer is over-worked, not respected, unappreciated, and is tired of dealing with the politics of the organization and other volunteers who are not fulfilling their obligations, then the volunteer often ends up leaving the organization.

The Volunteer Who Is a Burden
Volunteers who do not put their heart and soul into their volunteer position, who do not perform the duties they volunteered to do, or who perform the duties so poorly they might as well not even bother, can be a drain on any organization. Volunteer horror stories abound. I have had several bad volunteer experiences “? a volunteer who said they don’t answer their e-mail so the rest of the organization can’t communicate with him; a volunteer who made a serious legal mistake that could have put the entire board in serious trouble (remember, being a volunteer does not absolve you from liability; you still have a duty of care); a volunteer who offered to do something very important and a year and a half later still has not completed the task; and the countless volunteers who said they are “too busy” to do what they volunteered to do. Why would a person volunteer to do something and then say they are too busy? Why even bother to volunteer? If a person cannot keep their volunteer commitment, then the proper thing to do would be to step down from the position and allow another person the opportunity to perform the duties. A volunteer board member once told me, “They’re volunteers, so we have to accept what we get and not complain.” This negative mentality has to go if the volunteer numbers are to go up.

Now more than ever, both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations are counting on volunteers to help run their organizations. A well-run volunteer program can ensure that the right volunteers are recruited for the right jobs. Hopefully, organizations will start to see the value in recruiting and training volunteer staff, and the number of people who volunteer and the number of hours they volunteer, will start to go up again.

Resources:

1. Volunteer Calgary – http://www.volunteercalgary.ab.ca

2. Volunteer Canada: Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement – http://www.volunteer.ca/volunteer/pdf/CodeEng.pdf

3. Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians: Highlights from the 2000 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating – http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/71-542-XIE/71-542-XIE00001.pdf

4. Canadian Administrators of Volunteer Resources: Standards of Practice Summary – http://www.cavr.org (Standards of Practice Summary)

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

Society’s ever-increasing need to “super size” everything is perpetuating greediness. Do we really need everything to be super sized? What was wrong with the old size? Who told the manufacturers to make everything bigger? The profit-driven companies of North America are making money from super sizing everything from fast food to vehicles to houses. If society continues with the trend to super size everything, we will eventually reap the perils of this mentality.

In the fast food industry, I don’t think you can get regular fries anymore. The size of an order of fries is pretty big to start with and then you have the option of super sizing them. Do you ever finish your super sized fries? And if you do, is that a good thing? Also, if memory serves me correct, the size of a small drink in the old days was about 8 oz. Now, it appears to be 16 oz. If I’m an adult and I can’t finish this drink, how is a small child expected to finish it? Allowing people the option to order super sized portions of food, they will be eating more food than they should be eating. Over time, this will lead to very unhealthy eating habits by eating too much fast food. Society will start to feel the on-slot of Western diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and many types of cancers. Not to mention the “heart stoppers” so commonly associated with a diet laden with fast food: arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), hypertension, and stroke. The irony is the things that are super sized are not generally considered healthy and probably shouldn’t have been super sized in the first place. Drinking 32 oz. of pop is not a recommendation of Canada’s Guide to Healthy Eating and it’s not very appealing to watch a “biggie” person wolf down “biggie” fries. Once a person gets on the fast food merry-go-round of eating super sized portions and eating them frequently, they will always be wanting more -and that in turn creates greed.

The auto industry is also guilty of super sizing. Have you seen the new line of passenger trucks in the past few years? They stand so tall they dwarf the older models and you literally have to use a stepladder to get into them. Driving one of these trucks gives you the feeling you are trying to navigate the Titanic, complete with blind spots because the seats in these trucks are so big you can’t shoulder check around them. Why are trucks being super sized instead of being built smaller, like cars? Does it have something to do with the fact that most new trucks start selling at $35,000 and the manufacturers felt they had to build a bigger truck to justify their bigger price tag? Most people cannot afford a $35,000 truck. Even if they could, they would have a pretty big loan payment for five years. To get around this obstacle, people started leasing new vehicles and now we have a society full of “leasers” who do not own their vehicles. It is the ease of which almost any person can lease a vehicle that has greatly increased people’s greediness. They have discovered they can have whatever they want, whenever they want it, and don’t necessarily have to work very hard or for very long to get it. Sooner or later, we will see the erosion of people’s work ethic if they don’t have to work hard to earn the money to purchase a large-ticket item.

Right along side the auto industry is the housing industry. Have you taken a drive around the new neighbourhoods in your city recently? In fact, you don’t even have to live in a city. Small towns and acreages in the country are also affected. I’m from a family our four and I was raised in a 3-bedroom bungalow that had less than 1,000 sq. ft. Now a day, it is hard to find a new home less than 2,500 sq. ft! These super sized homes are the reason why houses have such hefty price tags on them. A new home with 2,500 sq. ft. sells for about $200,000; depending on what city you live in and in what area of that city. But most of what are seen make up the gargantuan homes that are 5,000 sq. ft. or more. Are young people with degrees that barely have the ink dry on them, who are working in entry level jobs and probably have very young families, expected to buy these homes? It’s not uncommon for people to have to get a loan or gift of great sums of money from their parents in order to put a down payment on a house so they can have affordable mortgage payments. This situation will make a lot of people perpetually house-poor for most of their adult life while they try to keep up with their mortgage payments, taxes, and utility bills. This also means there will be less money for RRSP’s, savings accounts and education funds. Aside from the money, that’s a lot of house to clean and yard to keep, which most busy people today don’t have the time for. And if either you or your spouse lose your job, your chances of going bankrupt in 30 days greatly increases if you have a very large mortgage and are leasing your vehicles. Unless you are raising 13 children, it probably isn’t necessary for you to live in grand opulence in a 5,000 sq. ft. home in the country. And don’t forget, once you buy the house, you have to “live the life”. The very nature of owning such a home would turn most people into a “consumer”, forever purchasing things they need for the new house.

The psychology of wanting more, getting more, becoming dissatisfied with what you have, and then wanting more again, is not considered a good trait. This will put you on the path to Greedy Land with all sorts of bad things happening along the way. People’s spending habits get out of control, their debt load becomes unmanageable, creditors start to hound, and bankruptcy forever looms in the distance. Money issues are a major cause of tension, stress and dissention in a marriage; namely the lack of money. It’s amazing how some people sleep at night considering what they owe, what they make, and what little they have put away. Has anyone taken the time to think about how they are going to live when they get old? We already know that Old Age Security won’t be there for most of society. How do people know their quarter million dollar home will be worth that or more in 20 or 30 years down the road? There is no crystal ball and nobody knows what the future may bring. But living beyond your means and being a greedy consumer now will probably come to an abrupt end at some point in time and the results won’t be pretty.

In the interest of your health, and personal and financial well-being, try to live within your means. Pay off your bills, put some money away, and make being a minimalist trendy!

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

There are probably as many reasons for becoming homeless as there are homeless people, but the large segment of people who wind up homeless on their own accord did so by making the same life-altering, bad decisions.

Bad Decision #1 – Quitting School

The worst decision anyone can make, that will have the most adverse affects on them for their entire adult life, is the decision to drop out of school before they graduate grade 12. I know in the “old days” a lot of people had to quit school in grade 6 to go to work in order to put food on the table but this isn’t 1938 anymore. Every child age 16 and under is required by law to attend school, and since a public education is free; it shouldn’t be a problem for poor children to attend school until they graduate. A 16 year old who decides to quit school has just wiped out much their future in a heartbeat (see: http://www.ssta.sk.ca/research/school_improvement/92-03.htm#ls ). Believe me, the numbers are very small for the amount of people who only have a grade 10 education that wound up making it “big” in life. Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to even find a job scrubbing toilets that doesn’t require a grade 12 education. Sixteen-year-old children don’t know much about the real world or the profound ramifications their life-altering, bad decisions will have on their entire adult life. If you know someone who wants to quit high school, have a little chat with them and let them know what their life will really be like without an education, and then drag them to school every day, kicking and screaming if you have to. Trust me, they’ll thank you for it later.

Bad Decision #2 – And Baby Makes Three

The second most life-altering, bad decision a person can make is the one where a teenage parent decides to keep their baby. The facts of teenage pregnancy are the subject of an entirely different article, but the decision to keep the baby is of great concern in this article. It is a heart-wrenching decision to give up a baby, but it is a brave teenager who does give up her baby in the best interests of both herself and the child (see: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020501/td020501.htm ). People who have good educations and good jobs have a hard time coping with raising a baby. What makes a teenager who has no education, no job, no money, and no family or social support, think they can successfully raise a child on their own? Sadly, most teenagers or young adults who keep their first baby wind up having more babies and living in grinding poverty, and yes, more of these people are becoming homeless (SEE: http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/publish/research/020327-0662318986-e.html). The reality is, most teenage mothers don’t go anywhere in life but down the slippery-slope and into the black hole, some never to return. And no, most Prince Charmings are not scouring the homeless shelters looking for a princess to rescue. If a teenager is determined to keep their baby, they should be prepared for the long haul because it won’t be fun and the chances of survival, let alone success, are slim. If you don’t believe me, call Social Services and ask them how many young, single (especially teenage) mothers they have on their files.

Bad Decision #3 – Two Taboos: Drugs and Alcohol

Another life-altering, bad decision that can ruin a person’s life, and most definitely make them homeless, is the decision to drink and/or do drugs. I’m not talking about the odd glass of wine with a meal, or a few belts at a Christmas party. I’m talking about binge drinking and becoming an alcoholic or doing drugs to the point where half your brain is fried. It is my opinion that alcoholism is not a disease. I don’t view it as something like cancer or diabetes where your body “develops” it over time; rather that people choose to drink and “become” alcoholics over time. There are a very high number of young, able-bodied persons who are homeless –but they’re often homeless because they are severe alcoholics or drug addicts. People who choose to drink or do drugs to the point where they have ruined their health and their life, will more than likely wind up homeless: through the incapacities addiction causes, it is a natural progression of events (see: http://www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/Medecin/alcool/drug.html).

The Lazy Bird Does Not Get the Worm!

We all think it but nobody says it. The truth as I see it are that some people are just so lazy, it’s not surprising that they wind up homeless. These “lazy bums” spend 99% of their time flopped out on the couch watching TV or playing computer games, and do absolutely nothing with their lives. Sometimes family and friends try to help this person find a job but every offer is turned down because “that’s not what they want to do”. It’s hard to picture these people amounting to anything; they can be a drain on our social systems, and while sticking to their bad habits, they will most definitely never become president of a company. This is the same person who also tries to justify their “laziness” by trying to convince you that they are “trying to find themselves”. When this person winds up homeless one day, usually because his parents or their roommate kicked them out, they haven’t become homeless due to extenuating circumstances beyond their control, they wound up homeless because they did nothing to prevent it.

The Silver Spoon Syndrome

You might wonder how some people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths wound up homeless. It’s a psychological thing. When parents spoil their children rotten, in essence they “ruined” them (meaning, the child was never taught how to do anything for himself, and everything was given to him on a silver platter); they won’t know how to do anything for themselves as adults. In that position, a person’s self-esteem is likely very low because they were never able to do anything for themselves in order to prove your own self-worth. These people don’t have the desire or ambition to live their own life and through a series of events, can wind up homeless. Sometimes the parents of these children decide to cut them off financially in an effort to motivate them to “get a life”, but all they achieve is throwing the child into a financial tailspin and putting them on the street. When parents raise their children to be spoiled rotten adults, they do them a great disservice.

There does exist a core of people who are “legitimately” homeless and are in dire need of help -but they are not receiving this help because the numbers of homeless people are too high to service adequately. When you hear the plight of a homeless person, try to find out the real reason why are homeless. As well as those who had homelessness forced upon them, there are those who choose to be homeless and some who made themselves homeless.

Tips on How to Avoid Becoming Homeless:

1. Don’t do drugs.
2. Don’t drink excessively.
3. Don’t become a teenage parent, or have children at a very young age.
4. Get at least a grade 12 diploma. If possible, get a college or university education, or learn a trade.
5. Don’t stay in low-paying, dead-end jobs for years. If you are in one of these jobs, always be looking for a better job until you find one. Until you find a better job, you can increase your chances of finding a better job by taking courses or job skills training programs.

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

In a society as advanced as ours, you wouldn’t expect to see such high numbers of homeless people. Studies show there are common contributing factors explaining why people are homeless, but I believe the real reason why most people are homeless cannot be attributed to these factors. A large number of people are homeless by successive bad choices, and society should take a preventive stance rather than just be blamed after the fact.

The Statistics Speak for Themselves

Calgary’s population in 1982 was 623,133 people and in 2002, it was 904,987 people. The math is this – Calgary’s population has increased by 281,854 people in the last twenty years; in fact, over 100,000 people in the last six years alone. That’s a lot of people! These figures represent more than just Calgarians having lots of babies, they represent a lot of people migrating to Calgary in search of a better life. Calgary has been in “boom mode” since about 1996, thanks primarily to the oil and gas industry which is doing pretty good for a change. Because of this, people all across Canada have been reading about how good it is in Calgary and they are flocking here in droves. The homeless problem in Calgary is accentuated by the fact that unless you have a petro-chemical degree or several years experience in the oil and gas industry, there isn’t much here for those in search of a good job. It has been said that Alberta has the highest number of people with university degrees, which makes sense considering what our main industry is, but an unemployed fisherman from an Atlantic province is not going to find an executive position at Shell Canada in Calgary. These “?hopeful for the future’ will probably wind up working a series of minimum wage jobs, living hand to mouth, and quite possibly wind up homeless. People need to be encouraged not to just pack up and move to another province without first doing some research. Simple research such as: What types of jobs are available? What type of education and experience is required for these jobs? How much do these jobs pay? Another no-brainer to be checked out first – how much is the average rent? The reality is people do more research when they buy a computer as opposed to moving to a new city. It’s nice to throw caution to the wind sometimes and take a chance, but are people really this naïve? Wouldn’t it make sense to have a job and a place to live lined up before you threw your duffle bag in the back of your car and drove 5,000 miles to a city you know nothing about?
Calgary is Getting Expensive

Calgary has seen its rents climb to outrageously high levels in the past six years and is getting almost as expensive to live in as Vancouver and Toronto. Other than the Landlord & Tenant Act stating that a landlord cannot raise rent more than two times in a one-year period in Alberta, there is no cap on how much each of the two increases can be. This loosely translates into – when Calgary does well, the rents go up but the wages don’t. No politician or businessman in his right mind is going to agree to increase the minimum wage because government and business owners don’t want to pay more for what they are already getting virtually for free. Don’t forget, Alberta’s premier doesn’t believe in helping the weak so only the strong survive. In Alberta, the motto is “you snooze, you loose”. If you can’t afford to live on your $5.90 an hour job in Calgary, then you should probably move to a city or town that you can afford. Medicine Hat and Lethbridge are fine cities and much less expensive to live in. Don’t insist on starving to death in Calgary; there are other alternatives.

A Systemic Problem

There is much debate about the systemic problem of homelessness and some would argue that it begins in childhood, in the home. There are many things parents can teach their children and how to survive is one of them. Remember the saying “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for life”? It also goes to follow that if a person is considered a bad parent (loosely defined as anyone who does not meet the minimum standards of care for raising a child by providing adequate food, shelter, clothing, and care), a person who is either an alcoholic, a drug addict, or is working dead-end, minimum wage jobs, or has less than a grade 12 education, they probably aren’t properly preparing their children for a strong position in the real world. It is not the responsibility of the school system for preparing children for the real world: it is the responsibility of the parents. If parents don’t give their children a proper head start in the world, then these children’s risk of becoming homeless greatly increases. On the flip side, there are those parents who are good parents, and they do all the right things for their child, but for some funny reason, the child insists on making life-altering, bad decisions in their life.

The Slippery Slope to Homelessness

It is usually the same series of life-altering, bad decisions that eventually make a person homeless. The person has probably dropped out of high school, they may have had a child at a young age, and they are stuck in a low-paying, dead-end job. That this person is probably very depressed about their lot in life could mean the risk of turning to alcohol or drugs for some kind of relief; lower socio-economic status and substance abuse are a related fact (see: http://www.stthomasu.ca/research/youth/risk.htm). For a person living this type of lifestyle, long passages of time usually go by without any positive changes in their life and one day, the break up of a marriage, the loss of a job, or constant personal problems, wind up leaving the person homeless.

You might also wonder about those people who seemed to have everything and then they wound up homeless. These are people who had to have everything brand new, but they never had enough money to buy food. These are people who, even though they may have a good education and a good job, they are so grossly lacking in money management skills, and/or are so greedy, that they actually put themselves in the poor house. A classic example is the person lives way beyond their means and has a huge mortgage (or a second mortgage), one or two leased vehicles, the best cable package, the latest cell phone, a top-of-the-line computer with bells and whistles they’ll never use, and they always seemed dressed in the latest styles. Yes, you can live like this for a little while, but things will eventually catch up with you.

The biggest catalyst that puts most people on the street is the loss of their job. If you aren’t eligible for EI benefits and you don’t have at least three months worth of expenses saved, and you either don’t have a spouse or a spouse who makes good money, or a rich benevolent relative, you could be running this risk. The statistics in Calgary for people who are about one paycheque away from being homeless are scary! In fact, there are a large number of people who have full-time, permanent jobs but they are still homeless. These people are referred to as the “working poor” because they are working dead-end, minimum wage jobs and they only make enough money to barely survive. This means these people can never save enough money for damage deposits for apartments and utility hook-ups, let alone pay a high rent on a monthly basis.

Stay tuned next week when Diane discusses the three biggest pitfalls to becoming homeless and tips on how to avoid becoming homeless.

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

Personal travel and the transportation of goods are two huge areas of development in the 20th century. Just a few short 100 years ago, people routinely got around by foot, horse or horse-drawn wagons or carriages, and trains. Only the very, very rich could travel abroad and that was by ship. A first-class ticket to sail the Titanic cost about $3,000 in 1912. Can you imagine what that translates to in today’s dollars? But as we all know, Henry T. Ford and the Wright Brothers changed all that. Cars and airplanes have probably done more to open up the world in the last century than the World Wide Web has in the last decade. The conveniences realized by these two new modes of transportation are incomprehensible. The logistics of moving mass hordes of people or tons of products around the world are mind-boggling and we couldn’t do it without airplanes, semi-trucks, or cars. But of course to every upside, there is a downside. Now that we have the ability to jump in our car and drive two blocks to the convenience store to pick up a quart of milk, we have lost the ability to put on our running shoes and go outside and enjoy the fresh air and a nice, brisk walk to the store. And do we really need 80 different types of rice imported from China? Or 40 varieties of tea biscuits from England? It’s nice to have choice and import different products from around the world, but at what cost? What we gained in convenience, we lost in laziness.

I will never knock the advent of radios, record/tape players, TVs, VCRs, microwaves, computers, CD or DVD players, but the more advanced our electronic gadgets become, the further away we get from the simple pleasures of playing hand-made instruments or singing with our loved ones. When today’s gadgets didn’t exist, that’s all people had to entertain themselves, hand-made instruments and their own voices. They didn’t have MuchMusic. It’s very convenient to put Kylie Minogue’s CD into your CD player and listen to her sing, but maybe it would be nice to get together with your family and friends and play the guitar and sing some favourite songs around the piano or fireplace. This is what good times and memories are made of, not mass-produced electronic gadgets.

Learning today was not was it was like yester-year. Sweeping changes have been made to accommodate an ever increasing world population but in doing so, our education systems have become a way of convenience to educate the mass hordes.

Our ability to learn effectively has been greatly diminished by education programs that pigeonhole students into learning only one way. If you don’t learn that particular way, you probably won’t learn very well. This, on top of student-teacher ratios in classrooms at an all-time high, does not teach a child to learn, it only pushes the child through the system.

Computers are wonderful machines but they shouldn’t be used to teach children how to learn. Printing, spelling and reading are the fundamental basics of learning how to learn. There is much to learn on a computer but when children are presented with a computer before they are taught how to print, spell or read, there is the possibility that the child will never fully learn these skills and that can hinder their ability to learn. Make sure your children learn these skills properly before letting them play on the computer.

Society has made it more convenient for us to read material on the Internet by providing bite-size pieces of information. This only gives you surface knowledge and it’s not the same as reading real paper books. There is something inherently lost by reading on a computer screen never to be regained. This convenience takes away our chances to learn more than what meets the eye.

Another drawback to snippets of bite-size pieces of information, especially as it is presented to us by the media, is we don’t learn the history behind the subject. The convenience of receiving information in bullet form will not make you an expert on any subject; it merely helps is memorize points of factual data.

Calculators allow us to get mathematical answers quickly without having to work out the problem longhand. If we always use a calculator to work out our math problems, we probably won’t remember all the formulae. One day, we might become lost at sea or in the forest, and the convenience of always using a calculator may pose a problem for us.

Do you really need eight different colours of highlighters to learn?

We can’t reverse the process of advancing technologies and we can’t reverse the hands of time. Some conveniences created in the 20th century are good for us but we must be aware of the conveniences that are not. The biggest drawback of today’s conveniences is that everything is instant and because of this, we have become mentally and physically lazy. Our ability to think, reason, and make sound decisions as it relates to everything in life, has slacked off immensely. There are a record number of obese people and western diseases are skyrocketing, especially in North America. We now spend our time like little rodents running on the exercise wheel of life, although a lot of people are actually trying to get off that wheel now and live a more simple, normal life. A technologically advanced society can provide many conveniences but the trade-off is a society that will become so lax that it’s survival instinct may falter. People who lived 100 years ago really knew how to reduce, reuse, and recycle – because they didn’t have a choice. Take a look back to what life was life 100 years ago and see what conveniences of today you can do without.

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

Imagine having to cook everything you ate, from scratch, by hand, probably with food you grew, or from food you got from bartering with your neighbour, who probably lived 5 miles away. Plus, bake your own bread. An amazing concept! But it was done and it was done every day, regardless of how much food you had or how many chickens were hanging out in the backyard. To truly understand this concept, you first have to think of yourself as a farmer because that’s exactly how it was for people of 100 years ago. Most people farmed, whether it was commercially or privately. Everyone had a garden – a big garden! And bad weather could devastate an entire winter worth of food. Not good if you had many mouths to feed, you didn’t make $60,000 a year, and there was no Quickie-Mart down your dirt road. Once you get past the growing-your-own-food concept, try to imagine yourself making three square meals a day for lots of people. If you have an image in your head of being stuck in the kitchen all day, then you’re there! This must have been a terribly mundane life and very physically demanding. But at least the food people ate 100 years ago was real. Now, nothing is “real” anymore. Even the fruit and vegetables we eat, something we like to think of as “natural”, are soaked in chemicals. Most food grown today is sprayed with pesticides to keep the pests away. The animals we eat are fed food with chemicals mixed in it or are actually injected with chemicals. It’s usually hormones that are injected to make the animal grow larger, faster, so it can be taken to market quicker. If most of us didn’t have to work full-time jobs, we could keep big gardens and grow most of our own food. Doesn’t everyone love to go outside and work in the garden? Don’t you feel great to see the bounty of your hard labour? Isn’t that the true meaning of Thanksgiving Day? It’s a very satisfying accomplishment to grow your own food and know your family will be healthier and happier for eating out of your own garden, not your grocer’s freezer. Is our health, our lives, worth the convenience of man-made, processed food that comes in a can or a box?

People a century ago didn’t have as much clothing as we do now but the fabrics and craftsmanship of their clothes were of a better calibre. It seems today what has been gained in quantity of clothing has been lost in quality of clothing. Everyone can appreciate an old favourite sweater their grandmother knit them; it’s still in excellent shape, keeps them warm, and doesn’t require machine-washing every weekend. I would rather have a very small wardrobe that consists of basic clothing but is made with good fabrics and craftsmanship that would last many years. Our ability today to buy any article of clothing we want, wear it for 10 or 15 minutes (the average length of a trend!), and then stuff it in the back of a closet, is a convenience we can do without. If we went back to learning how to knit and sew our own clothes, we would have more pride in our clothing and take better care of it. Besides, there really is more to life than just clothes, like: yourself, your health, your family, your education, and your career – just to name a few.

Hard to believe but people actually built their own houses with materials that today we would consider inferior, and with tools we would consider primitive. But that’s how houses were built and some of those old houses are still around today, a fine example of good craftsmanship and good ol’ fashion hard labour. Houses today are built with the latest technology, the best materials, and electronic tools. But not all houses stand the test of time; many foundations crack and many roofs leak. Remember lead paint and allergic reactions to certain fibres in carpets? Houses today provide people with great convenience, but some might say too much convenience. It’s possible if a person is provided with too much convenience, they will be lulled into complacency, and there are no benefits to being complacent. Once a person becomes complacent, the slippery slope begins and most everything else in that person and their life starts to slide. Yes, we live in nice houses today but there really wasn’t anything wrong with the houses of yester-year. It’s good to get off the couch and play with the children, go for a walk, or wash some dishes by hand. Being active is good for us, both physically and mentally.

The convenience of having heated homes and electricity (hooray for ovens and fridges!) is probably appreciated more in the cold-weather countries like Canada, than in warm-weather countries. If you live in the Bahamas, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if you didn’t have heated homes or indoor ovens, considering it’s probably warmer there in the winter than it is in the summer in Canada. And when it’s that warm out, you usually don’t require indoor heating and you cook outside – a lot! People have chopped and hauled wood to heat their homes, cook their food, and give a little light for the evening chores and play time for billions of years, and probably didn’t complain about it that much. Usually it was the men who did the wood chopping, although we know a fair number of women chopped wood too, but it was a natural excuse to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and get some exercise. Turning up your furnace in your house today does nothing for you but keep you inside and make you less energetic. The virtues of being outdoors and getting regular exercise cannot be understated; it is essential for good health.

Our standard of living has exceeded even our own expectations. Tune in next week, when we’ll finish exploring our new modes of transportation, electronic gadgets and how we learn differently today.

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

Earth has been around for about a few billion years now. Life progressed pretty slowly in that time and change was minimal over the centuries. That is, until, the 20th century! It’s been said there hasn’t been as much change on Earth in the last few billion years as there has been in the last 100 years. Hard to believe, but true! If we go back and take a peak in the history books, we can see several wheels in motion that were the catalyst for this explosion of change. All that change created amazing conveniences but are today’s conveniences really good for us?

About 100 years ago, probably around the time of your fifth set of great-grandparents, people hauled water for everything – water to clean themselves, water to wash clothes and dishes, and water to prepare and cook food. There were probably a thousand other reasons for water to be hauled, but keeping in mind how labour-intensive it was to haul water, people probably used it very sparingly. Can you imagine someone’s horror of their good water-hauling bucket springing a leak? Today, we nonchalantly turn on the taps in our kitchens and bathrooms and we instantly have clean, treated water. We probably have less tummy troubles and better teeth than our fore-people did by drinking chlorinated, fluoridated water, but how much do we really appreciate the water we have, and how much physical exercise can we possibly get by turning on a tap? Hauling water keeps consumption low and is a great over-all body workout.

Hauling water meant there was no indoor plumbing for toilets and bathtubs. Try to imagine visiting an outhouse at 3:00am in Canadian winter temperatures of -38 degrees and in three feet of snow. Chilly buns, I say! If visiting an outhouse in those conditions doesn’t appeal to you, rest assured, if anything, it will build character. And bathing in a pan of water isn’t quite the same as taking a nice, long, hot bubble bath in a soaker tub, with candles, and a good book. Hygiene wasn’t the order of the day 100 years ago, getting the fire started and grub on the table was. Today we enjoy the comforts of indoor toilets and bathtubs but we have also gone to the opposite end of the continuum and now some of us are too clean. It’s a medical fact that we have bugs in our hair and oils in our skin and we need to have these bugs and oils present for certain reasons. By scrubbing ourselves squeaky clean every day, we are stripping away these essential bugs and oils and in doing so, we weaken our immune system and can become sick more easily. It’s very convenient to jump in the shower every morning but this convenience is probably making us catch more colds and flues than we’ll ever know. There are even those who go to the extremes with their cleanliness and develop medical conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Surely this can’t be good for us.

If there is one chore that everyone hates, whether they lived 100 years ago or today, it’s doing laundry. Today we have washers and dryers that practically do our laundry for us. All we have to do is switch the clothes from one machine to the other and fold the clothes once they are dry. Imagine hauling water and hand-washing your entire week’s worth of laundry, every week, for your entire life! Using lye soap in boiling water without rubber gloves on must have been a real treat too. Of course people of a century ago didn’t have as many clothes as we do now, but it was typically the “lady of the house” that had to do laundry for everyone; husbands and children, and the more children you had, the more laundry you did. This was probably the most backbreaking work of 100 years ago. Washers and dryers are one convenience we just can’t do without today, unless of course you are looking for some backbreaking work to do.

Even though people of 100 years ago weren’t as clean as we are today, common illnesses were definitely considered more serious than they are today, and the medical community hadn’t made great advances in eradicating diseases yet. Don’t you find it odd that people today are actually developing more western diseases at an alarming rate than people did a century ago? Our 20th century conveniences created a lifestyle in which our health, over time, has started to deteriorate. Yes, we now enjoy the longest lifespan in the history of time, but it’s mainly due to our great advances in medical technology, not our new convenient lifestyle. Try to keep in mind how terribly ill most people are when they do finally die in their 70s or 80s. They’ve usually suffered from a terrible disease for years. It was medical technology that kept them alive that long, not living a good life. The trade off for a longer life doesn’t seem worth the convenience, if we’re that sick for that long before we finally go.

These are just some of the modern day conveniences we take for granted. Tune in next week, when we’ll continue our comparison of the bare necessities of life.

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

As a writer, you become acutely aware of every little nuance in the English language. You can spot an error at 500 paces and certain things start to annoy you. Periodically, you notice a change in the English language. You’re not sure who made the change or why, but you either accept it or add it to your growing list of annoyances. Here are a few of the latest changes that have more than a few writers with their pens in a knot.

Last Name Only
Writers are now expected to refer to people by their last name only, after originally referring to them by their first and last names. Instead of writing “?Mr. Smith’, we now have to write “?Smith’. Referring to people by their last name has always seemed disrespectful to me and I know I would be insulted if some referred to me as “Myslawchuk”. The only time people are referred to by their last names, I thought, were recruits in the army by their drill sergeants. That’s probably from where the disrespect originates.

Down to One Space
It’s probably just a conspiracy, not that I’m going insane, but I think the publishers and software companies got together one day, probably at Starbucks, and decided to ditch one of the two spaces used in between sentences. I heard that using one space is easier for doing layouts in Quark or PageMaker. And I notice that when I leave two spaces between sentences when typing an e-mail, they magically turn into one space after either saving or sending the e-mail. So now that things have been made easier for the publishers and the software makers by squishing everything together, can anyone actually read printed material that is squished together? What happened to all those studies that told us which font and pitch people found most comfortable reading, including the two spaces between sentences? As a person who is still considered young and has healthy eyes, I find it difficult to read with one less space between sentences. How do older people or people who do not have healthy eyes read the new print?

No More Mr. Hyphen
So everything my teacher taught me in grade 3 was for not? Do you know how long it takes a teacher to teach an 8-year-old child (most of whom have Mexican jumping beans in their pants, like I did!) to know where to put the hyphen in a word? And now, poof, they’re gone, just like that? “?Semiprecious’ is not a word but “?semi-precious’ is. When the hyphen has been removed from a word that is supposed to have a hyphen, it ruins the reading experience by stopping the reader dead in their tracks. The brain tries to pronounce the word without the hyphen, until it realizes the hyphen is just missing, and then the brain re-pronounces the word and picks up reading where it left off. When I read material that contains several words that I know should be hyphenated and they are not, it frustrates me to the point where I stop reading the material. Considering most people don’t read material in it’s entirety anymore (they prefer to scan the page for the information they are looking for, a bad habit they picked up from surfing the Internet), you would think publishers would avoid doing things to the English language that would make a reader stop reading.

As a writer, I like to think I have an open mind and I’m all in favour of the evolution of our language. But I don’t believe these changes are evolutionary. If changes are to be made to the English language, it would be nice to know what they are, the reason for the change, and a chance to disagree with the change. It would also make editing less of a challenge as well!

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.

Communicating with your university can entail sending a quick e-mail to Library Services to see if they have a book you need, or sending a lengthy e-mail to your tutor about a problem you are having with a course. Remember these simple rules of e-etiquette when communicating by e-mail.

The Salutation – How to Address the Recipient
If you have never met the person you are sending an e-mail to, or you are sending an e-mail to someone for the first time, always err on the side of caution and address the person the old-fashioned way. For example, if you are sending an e-mail to a general e-mail address and you don’t know who to address the e-mail to, just say “?Hello!’ If you are sending an e-mail to your tutor and his name is John Johnson, address your first e-mail to him as “?Dear Mr. Johnson’. Once your tutor replies to your e-mail, check his reply to see how he signed off. If he signed off “?John’, then you can assume he is giving you permission to address him as “?John’ in the future. Don’t address your tutor the first time you make contact with him as “?John’ only to learn he prefers to be addressed as “?Mr. Johnson’. Even in today’s electronically advanced age, it is still considered ill mannered to address someone informally, unless told otherwise.

Write Plain Language – Be Succinct and Clear
As with any form of written communication, follow the standard rules of business writing when you write e-mails. The two key rules to good writing is be succinct (use the minimum number of words to make your point) and be clear. By writing in plain language, the recipient of your e-mail will better understand your message; it will avoid misunderstandings and errors, and it will save you time by getting your message across properly the first time. Never try to be “?cute’ by using abbreviations (such as ttfn for ta ta for now) or emoticons (those little smiley faces) and never use vulgar or slang language. Keep in mind; your tutor is a well-educated, professional person, who typically does not appreciate bad English.

Check Your Tone
Whether writing on paper or in an e-mail, tone is a very sensitive issue. Try to ensure you sound friendly and approachable, yet at the same time professional, and avoid sounding angry or demanding. E-mail messages are like voicemail messages, if the recipient is turned off by the tone of the person who left the message, they don’t have to return the message.

Be Politically Correct – You Never Know Who You Are Communicating With
With the advent of the world wide web, you can talk to anyone, anywhere. You might be a foreign student living in China who has to send an e-mail to a tutor in Canada. Or you might be a Canadian student who has to send an e-mail to a tutor who was born and educated in Germany. The drawback to writing e-mails is you don’t always know whom you are communicating with. It is better to be politically correct than to embarrass yourself, or worse, insult someone.

Forget the Fancy Features – Loose the Crayons!
Most software programs have capabilities beyond our wildest imaginations and our needs. It’s okay to bold, underline or italicise the odd word for emphasis, but it’s not okay or even welcome, to make every word a different colour, font, or size. Most people don’t want colourful graphics because they take up huge quantities of memory and clog bandwidth during downloading. If you think fancy features will bring attention to your work, guess again. You might loose credibility if your recipient becomes frustrated while trying to read through your fancy features to get to your message.

Multiple Recipients – No Bulk E-mail, Please!
A major no-no is sending an e-mail to multiple recipients at the same time so that each recipient becomes aware of the other recipient’s e-mail address. In today’s world of terrorism and fraud, most people do not appreciate having their e-mail address advertised to people they do not know. If it means sending the same e-mail separately to 10 or 15 people, then do so.

Formats – Personalize Your E-mails
The format letter, now the format e-mail, is another source of contention. If you are sending the same e-mail to several people, take the time to personalize each e-mail so each person believes the e-mail they received was written specifically for them. When you send format e-mail to several recipients, it shows your recipient that you did not care enough to take the time to write to them personally.

Attachments – Ask First!
The best feature of e-mail is the ability to attach documents, such as assignments, to you tutor. This eliminates the need for expensive postage and relying on snail mail to make assignment deadlines. Again, due to terrorism and fraud, most people delete e-mails with attachments if they don’t know who the sender is, for fear of viruses and worms that can infect their computer. The best way to handle this situation is to check with the recipient, to see if they are okay with receiving e-mails with attachments, or if they prefer you cut and paste your documents into your e-mail message. If you are asked to use the cut and paste method, this is where not using fancy features will come in handy since some software do not convert exactly “?as is’ into e-mail messages.

Software Compatibility – Again, Check First!
If you are attaching documents to your e-mail, check with the recipient to see if they have the same software you are using and/or what version they are using. To be able to open and read documents, you must have the same software installed on your computer that you are receiving the documents in. Most people have compatible software and the latest versions, or at least they have the versions that are convertible. If the recipient of your e-mail does not have compatible software, then you will have to make alternate arrangements to get your documents to that person.

Scanning Documents Properly – Avoid the Headaches!
If you are sending an e-mail that has scanned material as attachments, make sure you understand how to scan, save, and e-mail material properly so when the recipient opens the scanned document, they will be able to read and print it with ease. Nobody enjoys printing scanned material that runs for 50 pages.

The Human Component – We’re Still Human Beings!
Don’t forget – sometimes it’s nice to hear the voice of someone you are communicating with. Your tutor might live hundreds of kilometers away, and you may never get an opportunity to meet them in person, but you can call, toll free, and hear their voice. Verbal conversation can also help cement the electronic relationship you have built with your tutor over the Internet. Give it a try!

When to Use Snail Mail – There’s Still Hope for Canada Post!
There are very few reasons why you would need to use snail mail anymore except for the obvious – returning library books. They just don’t seem to fit into the computer very well! But there is still one reason why you might want to use snail mail – to send a thank you card! Saying thank you in an e-mail just isn’t the same as receiving a hand-written thank you card in the mail. If you have a tutor who went out of their way to help you, or truly made a difference in your studies, then send them a thank you card in the snail mail and give your e-mail program a 5-minute break.

Personal Information
Your tutor has many students so remember to provide your first and last names, student identification number, address, phone number and e-mail address with each e-mail, so your tutor knows who you are and can get in touch with you either by phone, e-mail or snail mail.

Diane is a full-time, freelance writer. She specializes in writing technical articles for the oil and gas industry, but also writes feature length magazine articles of all genres, including Calgary-based magazines. She is working towards a Bachelor of General Studies degree.