My Actual Job Has Finally Begun!

Oh goodness. I didn't realize it had been TWO MONTHS since I last posted here. Sorry about that. Team Leader Training (TLT) ended just a couple weeks after that last post and the Corps Members got here to begin their month of training (Corps Training Institute, or CTI). That's when my real job as UDA began. I guess now I'm kind of at a loss for how to go about blogging. I used to do a day-by-day kind of format, but that's when I was doing things everyday that would (theoretically) be interesting for other people to read about. Now that my job is much more administrative, I'll have to figure something else out.

But I'll do my best to give you a general idea of UDA tasks.

Task #1: Every week, every team submits a Weekly Progress Report, or WPR. Obviously, this report just tell what they did that week. There are categories for quantitative tasks done on the work site, service learning, Physical Training (PT), Media coverage, team morale, things like that. UDAs are in charge of sending these out to the entire staff every Monday. Sun Unit's WPRs have mostly been getting better every week, but they still need quite a bit of proofreading before the whole staff can see them. The main problem is that they're supposed to be written in third person, and some people just can't quite remember that.

Task #2: Along with submitting WPRs every week, Team Leaders (TLs) also send me how many hours each of their Corps Members (CMs) got that week. I then enter the numbers into a giant spreadsheet that keeps a running total of everyone's hours. Everyone needs 1700 hours of service by the end of July in order to graduate from the program.

Task #3: UDAs are in charge of sending each team a package or large envelope of the team's mail that has been sent to campus. We've only done this once in the three weeks that the teams have been gone on their first projects just because there hasn't been much. No one wants to waste money to send a package that only has like 3 pieces of mail in it. Most of the UDAs also include their own things in the mail. I sent various puzzles and a quote ("It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without also helping himself" - Ralph Waldo Emerson) to each team, which I think I'll probably continue every time I send mail. I wish I could say it was my idea, but that's what last year's Sun UDA did, and I know my team always loved the puzzles (crosswords, logic puzzles, Sudoku, etc.). Sometimes teams also have something specific they need sent. One of my teams is in Houston, and there's going to be some kind of ceremony for the city of Houston to honor AmeriCorps. Obviously, they need to wear their formal uniform (steel toes, black pants, and white polo) for that, but one of the CMs didn't bring the black pants or polo. So I had to go into his room and find them in his closet to include in that team's mail.

Task #4: Every project round, one team from each unit lives on campus and has a project in the Denver area. I'm not really sure why, but the CMs on those teams have to have room inspections done every week. CMs who don't have local projects get their rooms inspected before they leave, but I don't know why local teams need room inspections every week. Anyway, guess who's in charge of the weekly inspections? Yep, the UDAs.

Task #5: Lots and lots of emails, phone calls, and texts. I'm sure this goes for other units and UDAs as well, but Sun TLs frequently call or email me with questions and requests. I also send lots of mass texts and emails. I TRY to just send one big email with all the reminders and announcements they need per week, but that hasn't actually happened yet. Other things just keep coming up after I've already sent the big email. I'm sure the TLs are all getting pretty tired of seeing my name in their email and text inboxes, but they just need to learn to love it.

So those are all the things I can think of that all four UDAs do every week. The rest of our time is spent with a lot of random things that come up. Also, all of our jobs seem to be slightly different because each of our Unit Leaders ask different things of us. Vaughn seems to be the most laid back and doesn't ask much of me, which just means it's more up to me to find things to keep myself busy. (And when I fail at that, I've gotten addicted to logic puzzles, specifically these .)

So yeah. That's how I spend my working hours. Next up will be my non-working hours, but I'll save that post for another day. Which most likely will be less than two months from now.

Oh, but before I end this one, here's where my unit is for their first projects:

Sun 1 (TL - Cody): Cal-Wood Education Center! My first project last year!

Sun 2 (TL - Brandon): Denver Mountain Parks

Sun 3 (TL - Matt): St. Louis Parks and Recreation

Sun 4 (TL - TK): Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks

Sun 5 (TL - Lupita): Boys and Girls Club in Denver (They're the team living on campus whose rooms I'm inspecting this round.)

Sun 6 (TL - GG): Project Homecoming (kind of like Habitat for Humanity, in New Orleans)

Sun 7 (TL - Meg): Houston Parks and Recreation

Until next time!