I adored my two visits to the Computer History Museum in Palo Alto, the guided tours and showcases were run by volunteer retired industry veterans. It was obvious that they loved doing it, and it was such a privilege to hear from the people icebreaking right at the beginning of all of this, back when it was all punchcards, tape and big-ol' mainframes. They were still playing around with the old tech, restoring it and doing cool new things with it, just for the joy of it.
Yes! Oh man, it was Dec and, besides the usual showcase, he would feed punched paper tapes into the old music program he made in the early 60s and there was an awesome christmas carol sing-along with him with the PDP-1 backing music! :)
It was cool to play Spacewar! on it as well from 1962, some of his colleagues made it on the same computer at MIT. Very likely the oldest program you will ever interact with, certainly the oldest game, and it was so damn smooth and playable.
I've talked about it on here before, but I love volunteering in nursing homes for very selfish reasons.
The people in there have lived lives. They may be out of touch but they know things. I talk with residents about my hobbies of woodworking, gardening, canning, hunting, fishing, and wild gathered food.
I've learned WAY more with those conversations than YouTube or books could've ever taught me. It's absolutely worth your time.
And nursing homes are always looking for people to spend time with the very lonely residents.
Anyone with a hobby that isn't technology should do that.
In your experience, are bursts of violence or psychotic episodes from the elderly common? Every so often I read news stories of physical abuse against carers and volunteers, but I'm not sure of the actual frequency or severity of such cases or what protocols in place to mitigate them.
No. I have only seen what I would call violence once in the last 25+ years. Those stories tend to be over-hyped. I've seen countless residents with dementia yell randomly, but not be violent.
My mother has worked in long-term care facilities for around 40 years, and has only seen one violent resident in that time.
Care homes a) have protocols in place and b) can boot violent residents if they are unequipped to care for them.
The people who are really, genuinely dangerous tend to be in very specialized care settings.
Also the nursing home staff in the activities department can tell you which residents to work with, even on the special care units (Alzheimer's and dementia sort of things). They know the residents and know which ones are lonely, what their history is, and which ones will enjoy your company.
Volunteering is such a great way to fill the soul!
There's so many ways to volunteer, always another way to help if you need a change. I got into fire fighting last year, and now help with ambulance volunteering. I also do free job skills tutoring, that's a fun way to interact with people directly.
There's a ton. NY is a fairly "socialist" state, and has a lot of altruistic (and non-altruistic) stuff going on, but most of my volunteer work has been for an organization, of which I'm a member, and I do Service for other members.
I am more than happy to chat about it, but I don't usually discuss it at the level of Press, Radio, and Film. Drop me an email.
An honest question - why can’t volunteering be a job?
From a free market principle, doesn’t giving your time for free for what is clearly of a lot value send the wrong incentives to organizations who are paid (whether by tax payers or patients) to deliver the value you’re giving away
I run marketing for a non-profit that supports a number of community programs.
One of which provides free in-school dental care for rural children, regardless of insurance or nationality. The grant funding ran out years ago and the non-profit has been funding thousands of dental treatments out of its reserves - which is obviously quite expensive.
All of this is to say I was tasked with creating and running a fundraising campaign with a budget of $300 - to raise funds for a 6 figure annual expense. My budget is so small because all of the other budget went to child dental wellness.
It's a multi-week campaign and if I brought on incremental labor costs with each volunteer - I would be in gross violation of minimum wage laws and sink the non-profit due to the minimal resources available.
Not usually. The main reason that these organizations need volunteers is, is because most folks don’t think they are worth supporting, financially.
This is often because they serve segments of the population that represent a small demographic, or because the causes they champion don’t enjoy mainstream support.
There are some organizations that abuse volunteers, but they are few and far between (but are treated as typical, when folks want to attack).
Also, when you pay for work, you get work, but there’s no guarantee of “heart.” In many cases, the emotional investment is worth far more than the financial worth.
I’ve been doing volunteer work for over 40 years. Much of it has been extremely valuable tech work, and much of that work has been treated in rather shabby fashion. When people get stuff for free, they often devalue it. This is common, in nonprofit work. It can certainly be maddening.
I do it anyway. I tend to think of the final end-users of my work, as opposed to the middlemen/women (BTW: volunteering is a great way to meet potential romantic interests -I don’t care; I’m married).
In a free market system, if nobody thinks something is worth supporting financially, then it isn't worth supporting financially, and doing it for free distorts the economy and reduces efficiency.
Is there a difference between "I think this cause is worth supporting with my money (which will be used to pay someone's salary)" and "I think this cause is worth supporting with my time"?
You have a mistaken conception of the free market. The voluntary action we do in upholding our families and communities is foundational to the economy - voluntary action is the space in which economic liberty occurs.
It doesn’t reduce efficiency because the volunteers are the judge of worth and their’s is the only opinion that matters. The cost of providing services can be quite low when the labor is volunteered, so the cost to benefit tilts heavily in the direction of net benefit, i.e. efficiency in producing positive outcomes at a particular cost.
Volunteers clearly get value out of volunteering, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Everyone is free to define their own measure of value. That's one of the reasons it's called a "free" market. A market where money is the only measure of value is definitionally not a free market.
> doing it for free distorts the economy
It's very noble of you to do stuff for "the economy". Most just pursue selfish needs and desires like food, clothing, shelter, and wanting to make a difference in others' lives.
In Sweden, where the minimum salary is pretty high, and in general employment has many rules and laws around them, there would be a limit to the type of work that you can do as a "job".
You can't just transform a volunteer to a person working for half the salary of the employed person next to him.
Because free market is sometimes (in fact a lot of the times) bullshit.
Free market doesn’t work when people have no personal interest on something and in itself promotes individualism.
So free market doesn’t care about people who suffer so much they become a burden to the economy.
And that’s for any suffering, not only pain : you can be of no interest for free markets if you are poor, sick, isolated, homeless, if your country is at war, under influence, constrained, abused or just unlucky …
Free markets can fulfill most of the human needs by transforming money from and into goods and services but if there is something it’s not going to do, it’s to care.
It’s an issue because humans naturally cares about things and other humans and that’s how our societies aren’t collapsing everyday.
But the capitalist system, for all its proven goods, also inherently promotes individualism and demotes caring of the world and people around.
Volunteers are doing the important hard work that free market and politics won’t do.
All of this could probably be avoided in a perfect democracy but a perfect democracy will never happen and would anyway live in an imperfect world.
But not all the time, and that is the point. Plus, most of the people with dementia that are extremely aggressive and/or violent are that way due to a lack of socialization and an extreme sense of loneliness.
Of course that’s not always true, and I can guarantee that volunteering there is not always pleasant.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t rewarding or worthwhile all the same.
If a person is (ever?) that way, then they shouldn't be in one of these places that contains "nice" people. Otherwise the nice people are going to be pretty unhappy in short order.
> most of the people with dementia that are extremely aggressive and/or violent are that way due to a lack of socialization
That's one way to describe my ex-biker father I guess. ;)
I wouldn't even say you're wrong. His response to any kind of desire for people to socialize him is... also aggression and/or violence.
Dementia removes a lot of the executive functioning that allow people who are jerks to keep their jerkness under control.
For example: A racist with dementia will probably become more of a racist, as he will lack the conscious reasoning that tells him he must keep some thoughts for himself.
My mother routinelly called heir caretakers the N world on her last years.
She was educated in another age, has during most of her life kept this side of her personality, from her early formation under control, but just couldn't control it anymore with Dementia.
They either separate them or more usually medicate them so they can't abuse other patients or the staff. They basically become bedridden on pills, and are sleepy all the time. The old people places love those patients because they are much less work and you can keep milking the family for much longer. The person has no awareness of themselves or their surroundings, sleeps all day, I cannot understand how this is allowed.
I have a family member being put through this for the past few years, though I have no power to change the situation as other people are in control.
> If a person is (ever?) that way, then they shouldn't be in one of these places that contains "nice" people. Otherwise the nice people are going to be pretty unhappy in short order.
Nah. The people who volunteer for this kind of thing understand that this is almost never the patient’s “fault.” Having dementia is a lot of things: terrifying, infuriating, lonely, confusing, and so on. In many cases, you also lose executive function slowly but at a consistent pace, adding to the confusion.
Sometimes, every patient gets irritable and angry. They actually mention in the article that then is when they “flit” like a hummingbird to another patient.
> That's one way to describe my ex-biker father I guess. ;)
> I wouldn't even say you're wrong. His response to any kind of desire for people to socialize him is... also aggression and/or violence.
Heh, I meant no offense, honestly. The reason I put it that way is because the socialization at that age is so so important; these people are confused and scared, and that can lead to anger. It requires immense compassion to get past that, but if you can, man… the amount of reward that can come from that is immensely powerful. I’ve never had a bigger dopamine hit other than saving an animal’s life (I foster kittens).
> The people who volunteer for this kind of thing ...
I was meaning the other residents in the same location. Don't inflict bad people on them. :(
> It requires immense compassion to get past that, but if you can, man… the amount of reward that can come from that is immensely powerful.
Nope. That's just silly. You're welcome to come here and try if you want, but I guarantee you'll change your opinion after experiencing this personally for a few days. :(
Can't speak to other countries, but where I live they're specifically separated
Non violent residents were afforded many liberties, violent ones were moved to a different slightly better equiped facility (I guess it's easier to find funding to keep "the crazies" in check vs just caring for demented people)
Our family is going through the experience of a elderly relative with dementia and I have to say it's pretty depressing (and borderline destructive) all round.
Sadly, I can relate to this. I wouldn't wish such an experience even to my worst enemies. You see people turning into a husk of themselves, and all the family in-fighting, where one side wants to help them and the other considers them nothing more than a burden... Terrible.
Even when we all want to help, it's extremely hard work, and the stress of caring burns out those who provide it.
My brother organised a family home for my mum to move into with him and his wife, and I was able to help for as long as they needed; and even though sister-in-law is an active nurse, and also even with my bio-sister taking mum on trips as often as she could, it became too much.
For one, mum eventually insulted the dementia daycare people and was told she was no longer welcome as a customer.
Then there was the night she was caught in a loop of {want to pee, oh nothing has happened, flush toilet, leave, want to pee again even though the cistern hasn't yet refilled}.
Or wandering out of the house and being lost immediately; fortunately the drivers paid attention when she crossed the road dangerously, and the other time she was only lost in the back garden so I found her immediately. But she resented not being allowed to wander, too.
Each of us still visits the grave, when we can — harder for me than the rest, as I'm in a different country now.
It's even worse, if they have an estate worth anything.
The family can turn into animals, fighting over it, and care homes have developed an entire industry, based on taking money away from old people (and their children).
It's not just for old folks. Many of the skills that I used in my career, were honed doing volunteer work.
I've been doing this kind of work, all my life, and retiring just gave me more time to devote to it.
> NOTE: Not a bed of roses, unless you count all the thorns.
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