Volunteer Story - Paul

My name is Paul Mayer and I am 53 years old and have been a full-time volunteer since October 2018. I have many mental health and medical issues that has made finding and holding onto paid employment hard, which has been hard to cope with, but when a former St John Op Shop volunteer suggested I put my application in to work for St John Op Shop, I was very hesitant at first and didn’t bother applying for six months. When I finally did apply, I was full of anxiety because I never do well at interviews. Luckily the manager at the time was very understanding of my mental and medical issues. Because of that I felt was the reason why I was hired.

For many years I have been trying to find paid work, but because the jobs I had been applying for mostly wanted someone with experience, transport or good health. That made it very difficult, as I had none of those. When I did eventually found paid work, it never lasted due to my mental and/or medical issues and ended up quitting. But then when I got the job at St John Op Shop, I found it was ideal for the most part because the job was so varied and had many tasks that I needed to get done each and every day. When I first started, my manager at the time pushed me into uncomfortable situations and has slowly helped me to grow mentally, because I suffer from anxiety and social anxiety disorders. I still have a long way to go to overcome my problems.

My daily chores is varied a lot from vacuuming the shop, removing rubbish from the building, fill-in checkout operator, helping customers with their enquiries, assisting staff when needed, organising furniture repairs with our repairer, moving furniture, picking up and dropping off goods to and from customer’s homes, organising pickups and deliveries, inspecting, researching and pricing goods plus any other odd jobs that need doing.

What I consider to be fun about the job is when smaller donations come in like bric-a- brac, toys, office odds and ends, DVDs, CDs, etc and not knowing what has been donated initially and having to sort through it all and being surprised as to what I come across is like being at Christmas time. But also to laugh and joke around with other work colleagues. This is what makes the job so enjoyable for me and I really enjoy working with such nice fellow work colleagues.

My relationship with other volunteers is good for the most part, but because of my social anxiety disorder I have a lot of self-doubt in my ability to have a proper verbal communication with most staff. That is why I tend to keep to myself and avoid conversations with others as much as possible. My current manager was there for me when I had an emotional breakdown and when I needed support with WINZ. Both my past and current managers have been very easy to talk with when and if I have anything on my mind that has been bothering me.

St John is currently supporting me through funding my study for Retail qualifications. As for how far I intend to pursue the training remains to be seen.

My long-term goals are to continue working on my mental health issues and work on my Retail qualifications. As for my ability to find paid employment is not what I think is in my long-term goals, as I don’t believe my mental health issues will be cured anytime in the foreseeable future. So I see volunteering and retail training is probably going to be my only real goals.