A Day in the Life of .....Tracy a KAR Office Angel
Posted: Wed 22 Jun 2016 10:27 am
Tracy recently joined the KAR Office Angel team and quickly realized that the role is very varied ....
A Day In the Life of …….Tracy a KAR Office Angel:
This is one very busy office! As a new member of the ‘Office Angel’ team at the KAR Karakum office, I am amazed at how busy the office gets. I thought; nice little cushy office job for one day per week, no problem! This is not the case.
Normally I am on reception for at least half the day and then I swap with my colleague and get some admin done upstairs where it’s quiet! These are just a few people I have come into contact with during my day:
THE MAN WITH THE CAT: During the day a lovely young Turkish man brought in an injured cat. The cat had been hit by a car and was seriously hurt. This kind young man had picked it up off the road and put it in his car and brought it to our office. The young man was willing to contribute towards the cat’s treatment if we could help with the cost. I asked Margaret, our chairperson, if we could help and although this is not something we can afford to do on a regular basis, Margaret agreed and said “yes no problem we can help”. So I called the vet to let him know the ‘man with the cat’ was on his way and the young man took the cat to see the vet. However, sadly the cat was in really bad shape and didn’t recover.
THE LADY FROM LAPTA: We had a call from a lady in Lapta who had 6 puppies appear in her garden. This lady was a dog lover herself, she has 5 dogs of her own and so could not cope with the puppies. So, I advised her that I would let our community warden know about the puppies and would also call our rescue centre to find out if we had room to take them. However, this lady misunderstood and brought the puppies in her car to our office at 4.55pm just before we were about to close. Luckily my hero was around to save the day (our Community Warden) he explained to the ‘Lady from Lapta’ that we needed to reorganize space at the rescue centre in order to make room for the unwanted puppies and that we could not take them today. He assured her that they would be picked up the next day. After some persuasion (in Turkish) the lady took the puppies’ home with her and they were picked up the next day.
THE ANGRY SHOPPER: Attached to the office is ‘Gladrags’ this is a wonderful shop full of lovely clothes, so I don’t just come and work in the office I can go shopping as well; bonus! Anyway, I was answering some emails when a shopper from our Gladrags shop started shouting at me from the shop doorway! “Shame on you, there is nothing new in ze shop, you are charity, shame on you all”, “why you no have new stock”? “You want to make money but no stock in shop”? “I come here for clothes…nothing new in shop”? And so it went on. However, another hero overheard this and came to my rescue. “Excuse me” the hero said, “Do you realize this shop is run by volunteers? Our ladies all give their time freely and they work very hard to keep up with the demand. We don’t have enough volunteers, if you want to see constant new stock in the shop, please find me some more volunteers and please do not shout at my ladies”? The Angry Shopper stopped being angry and apologized for her comments and said she didn’t realize that this was the case. The ‘not so angry shopper’ still regularly visits our shop and we are very grateful for her support.
Please note This is NOT a photo of the Angry Shopper !
Besides these regular visitors to our office, there are numerous incoming phone calls to answer, emails to reply to and day-to-day administrative duties to carry out. However, my time in the KAR office flies quickly, I am never bored and my colleagues are supportive and kind.
I love my ‘cushy little job’ at KAR and long may it continue.
A Day In the Life of …….Tracy a KAR Office Angel:
This is one very busy office! As a new member of the ‘Office Angel’ team at the KAR Karakum office, I am amazed at how busy the office gets. I thought; nice little cushy office job for one day per week, no problem! This is not the case.
Normally I am on reception for at least half the day and then I swap with my colleague and get some admin done upstairs where it’s quiet! These are just a few people I have come into contact with during my day:
THE LADY FROM LAPTA: We had a call from a lady in Lapta who had 6 puppies appear in her garden. This lady was a dog lover herself, she has 5 dogs of her own and so could not cope with the puppies. So, I advised her that I would let our community warden know about the puppies and would also call our rescue centre to find out if we had room to take them. However, this lady misunderstood and brought the puppies in her car to our office at 4.55pm just before we were about to close. Luckily my hero was around to save the day (our Community Warden) he explained to the ‘Lady from Lapta’ that we needed to reorganize space at the rescue centre in order to make room for the unwanted puppies and that we could not take them today. He assured her that they would be picked up the next day. After some persuasion (in Turkish) the lady took the puppies’ home with her and they were picked up the next day.
THE ANGRY SHOPPER: Attached to the office is ‘Gladrags’ this is a wonderful shop full of lovely clothes, so I don’t just come and work in the office I can go shopping as well; bonus! Anyway, I was answering some emails when a shopper from our Gladrags shop started shouting at me from the shop doorway! “Shame on you, there is nothing new in ze shop, you are charity, shame on you all”, “why you no have new stock”? “You want to make money but no stock in shop”? “I come here for clothes…nothing new in shop”? And so it went on. However, another hero overheard this and came to my rescue. “Excuse me” the hero said, “Do you realize this shop is run by volunteers? Our ladies all give their time freely and they work very hard to keep up with the demand. We don’t have enough volunteers, if you want to see constant new stock in the shop, please find me some more volunteers and please do not shout at my ladies”? The Angry Shopper stopped being angry and apologized for her comments and said she didn’t realize that this was the case. The ‘not so angry shopper’ still regularly visits our shop and we are very grateful for her support.
Besides these regular visitors to our office, there are numerous incoming phone calls to answer, emails to reply to and day-to-day administrative duties to carry out. However, my time in the KAR office flies quickly, I am never bored and my colleagues are supportive and kind.