volunteer

by

Volunteering at PyCon India 2024

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(Nope, I am not in that picture)

It was quite a year.

Not just in terms of PyCon, but personally as well. Hence when Ani came up to me during that Bangpypers event, I thought twice before answering him when he asked me about volunteering for PyCon. After a few seconds, as much as I had the “great automatic grammatizator” at the back of my head, I said “Content”.

My fear was proven right. Not only so, but I wasn’t able to deliver either. Of course, as is with almost everything, the first few weeks went according to plan – weekly meetings, discussions around who would take up what, etc. However, as time moved on, as much as I hate using the phrase “as was expected since we were volunteering”, that is indeed what happened and I started slacking.

The one whom I have to apologise the most to would be Aakashnil Roy since his social media as well as mailing list announcements were blocked due to the content team falling behind. The reason I mention this is because, I hate this excuse. Intentionally or not, that is the excuse I used in my head.

Volunteering

The way I see volunteering at its core is like meeting a person who desperately is in need of help and telling them “trust me, I will help you”. Obviously, it is very rare that you would say that going upto a complete stranger doing something completely random at a completely random time. Hence the assumption here is that you are telling it to either someone whom you know, or someone whom you see is putting in the effort to achieve a cause that you believe in.

They feel relieved. They trust you. They delegate. The success of the effort now depends on you as much as it does on them. They gave you power. You can probably imagine what “letting them down” would mean by now.

However, “letting them down” is not the metric on which you should base the consequence of your actions. Remember, you offered your help because you either loved the person whom you offered it to or loved the cause they were working for.

Hence letting yourself down should be the more important metric here.

You make yourself vulnerable to be held accountable for. Accountability is inevitable. Being defensive at your failure is not an option. You admit. You get back up. You continue.

It will be definitely be up there in one of the most fun experiences you’ve ever had, but volunteering is not “just fun”.

And therein lies the beauty of it. You are never alone.

The Team

The beauty of the thing is, the excuse works both ways. On one side, as I said, people use it to slack off. However on the other side, people see it as a sign for showing compassion. The respect towards the intention with which the initial commitment was made pours out and the team comes forward to support.

That. Is. Magical.

Suffice to say that the team did a lot of the reviews that were required which, to be honest, made me feel ashamed of myself. However, one common theme across all the times I have volunteered for in my life is that the team accepts you. As I said, you are never alone. You belong.

And the PyCon India team of volunteers will always remain my goto example whenever I make that comment.

We persevered, we stuck together, we delivered. Along the journey during which I was continuously relearning & refreshing whatever I wrote so far.

September 21st

I reached Bangalore on 21st itself. After volunteering in the morning at my office for cutting up the flowers and leaves for making the “Onam pookalam” and having a good “Onam sadya” (Lunch) with my colleague Eldho, I left work a little early since all the volunteers for the conference were asked to report at the venue by 5PM sharp.

I really hate it when people don’t respect others’ time. I was there at 5.

The allocation of duties were already done by that time. For whatever reason, seeing myself allocated as the “Emcee/ Speaker coordinator for Audi 3” made me feel extremely uneasy. I was not sure why. I talked to my wife & mentioned that I was considering attending instead of volunteering.

She said, “That’s the last half a decade’s worth of comfort zone messing with you. Go get it done”. I fondly remembered one of Sidharth’s comments during the Pune BoF meetup – “Marry well”.

We spent the evening introducing ourselves to each other as well as making sure everyone knew what their tasks were going to be and whom they were going to work with. We had fun doing the swag packing session with the “most optimised algorithm generated over the last decade” as well.

Since all of us had to reach the venue at 7AM for the next 2 days, I bid goodbye a little early and went to get a good night’s sleep.

I was nervous and tensed beyond words. I knew why. I cycled my mind through a few of the volunteers’ faces. Both old and new. I felt calm, and I slept off.

September 22nd & 23rd

Grabbed my volunteer’s badge and went in.

“We need to vacate the inventory room downstairs! Nimhans is super strict about only having their stuff in that room” – Bibhas and Sohom were discussing.

I was like, “Ah lovely! The fun starts”.

For whatever reason, one of the things that I look forward to the most during any and all of my volunteering experiences was handling the unplanned and unaccounted for stuff. It is one of those occasions where “that person” takes charge and there’s no question of “who put you in charge”, but everyone just falls in line and gets it done. We found a very… strange trolley (one that has to be pulled instead of pushed), loaded it up with boxes, a certain “chair on chair” combination and within 10 – 20 minutes, got everything out.

In the midst of which Pratik found me and said, “Hey, go and have breakfast”.

Speaker Co-ordination

In Audi 3, Sam and I were handling the speaker co-ordination on day 1. Kalyan and I did it on day 2. While the task itself had a proper definition, it was all the subtle things around it that I loved the most. The most important thing being – to make the speakers comfortable.

Many of the them were first time speakers. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit emotional seeing myself in them when I had my first such experience almost a decade ago. A pat on the back, a few jokes, the water bottles, the short pep talks, all goes a long way. During those moments, personally for me, it never felt like “me doing my task”. It was like trying to make the best out of that occasion together with them.

And that is the tricky line to walk. It * is * a professional conference by all means. Volunteer driven or not, the attendees and speakers come with very high expectations. Hence standing your ground and at the same time not being rude or rubbing anyone off the wrong way is extremely important. I had to cut a few of the speakers off, limit the Q&A along with a few subtle head nods and thumbs ups to make sure things were on time and on track.

Two of the speakers coming towards the end of the conference and explicitly showing their gratitude made the entire effort worthwhile.

Wrapping up

There were numerous tiny things that added up to the whole experience otherwise too:
– Manning the door to do crowd control since Audi 3 was the smallest and hence got filled up quick.
– Meeting folks from the past and that instant smile on their faces.
– The short but sweet show of concern from different folks (especially Pratik & Ashish) asking “had food?”, “tired? need a break?”, “come over and join the others”, etc.
– The good food!
– Couple of times when certain people called me “Noufal!”, and started talking to me. I enjoyed standing there, and it took a minute or two for them to realise the mistake. He he.
– And finally that attendee who was desperate to get a speaker bag from me! I thought it was silly until the point when I got one of them bags as a token of appreciation being a volunteer. Then I could understand why he really wanted to have one of ’em.

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That’s about it for this year folks. For nostalgia’s sake, here is an email I sent back in 2015 to the entire registration team once the event was over:

Okay, I spent a minute on how to address all of you..

"friends"? Na, too immature and formal.
"folks"? Nope, something that I use a general addressing noun.

Know what? I am just gonna skip addressing altogether! I'll just begin
by saying we were the best TEAM EVaaa!

And yeah, this mail was sometime coming. Let me make the usual excuse
saying I was catching up on work and blah blah.

How're all of you doing? Recovered well and back to your daily
routines again I hope? For me personally, it felt good to rest me feet
(yes, literally) because they were hurting beyond words on Sunday
night.

I haven't felt the way I felt being with all of you in all my
volunteering and team work experiences. I really meant it when I said
this: https://twitter.com/harisibrahimkv/status/651011704810156033

Each and every one of you are awesome.

Numan,
It was such a weight off my head when you agreed to take up all the
printing and pouch hunting. I was so worried of getting back to
Bangalore late after Eid. Thanks to you I could stay back with my
family for a couple of days. :)

Take care of yourself. Haven't met your two little ones, but they are
extremely fortunate to have a Father like you.

Rakesh,
Well, I can't thank you enough for sorting and splitting up all those
badges and getting them ready for registration day. I know I might
sound over-excited, but trust me when I say that one of life's
greatest pleasures is to have friends who are as committed as you for
a job and don't miss out on the even smallest of details.

I hope you found time to talk to a few potential employers at the event. ;)

Siva,
Well, I can aptly describe you as being the power house of the entire
team. ;) Thanks for understanding the times I was so tired and taking
up the load from me. As I said, every little thing, not matter how
mundane, adds up to being a strong team.

Also folks, this: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4089236/. I feel privileged now!

Meghana,
I didn't get much time to get to know you personally, but thank you so
much for being there at the time we needed you. Just coming up and
saying that you would take up the sponsor/speaker stall was such a
relief. I really was decision-tired at that point and I guess as I
mentioned here (https://mail.python.org/pipermail/inpycon/2015-October/010256.html),
there really is a telepathic connection going on. :)

I hope you had a great time with your event with the dev sprints and
along with your sister.

Dhriti,
Your commitment showed the moment you reached so early on Saturday
morning to help out! Thank you so much for sacrificing your time at
the conference to help us out. Within the little time we had at the
venue, I understand why Chandan so proud to introduce you. :)

Hope the volunteering work didn't take up too much of your time and
you were able to engage with the conference crowd as well.

Rajat,
Dude, you were a shoulder I could lean on! And your humour sense
coupled with that look you can have on your face is priceless at
times. You know those few people whom you know that if you're with you
are guaranteed a good time? It's you. :)

I am sure you'll be a pillar of PyDelhi's community.

Kiran,
I guess the conference had a lot on your plate. I am just glad I could
pull you in now and then to help us out in between your other duties.
Sadly, we didn't get much time to chat this year unlike last except
for a few minutes over food. It was fun doing crowd control with you
at the t-shirt stall. :)

And man, you're the coolest!

Anand,
You were inevitable in the team! Thank you so much for taking care of
all the money matters! I am sure I would have gone crazy trying to
handle that in between. It was a great weight off all of our heads
when I heard you were bringing in all the stationery.

Besides the registration, thank you for being a pillar in organizing
PyCon. I am sure Vijay and Krace could not have done it without you.

Soumyo,
You were a blessing in disguise at the time of need. I apologise for
dragging you into registration when you were happily planning to
attend the conference for both the days, but thank you so much for
having the mind to help out. Hope I didn't take too much of your time
out from the conference.

And man, I was so glad to hear you pronounce my name "Haris" instead
of "Harish"!

Apoorva,
Well, even if you hadn't been there at the registration stall, I
wouldn't have been able to thank you enough for sorting those "A"
badges in place! I am pretty sure none of us would have had the
patience to do it. Thank you so much for manning the stall, even alone
at times. You were someone I could count on with my eyes shut.

So no more waking up at 6? At least, I am glad that you enjoyed that
for the conference. ;)

Vanitha,
You literally ran the conference! Folks, she took care of all the
speaker - reviewer co-ordination for this year's conference. Thank you
so much for taking the time from between your busy schedule to help us
out with the sponsor/speaker stall at the time of need.

I am glad you were there to cool down those two people who came with
the workshop tickets for the conference. :) Man, that was quite a
moment.

Mahanthesh,
Your excitement to be a part of community and to get involved more
translated into your commitment. I am sorry I didn't get to using your
Whatsapp suggestion, but that would have been extremely helpful in
that scenario had I used it. Perhaps you can take charge next year and
lead the registrations? :)

Also I understand that you want to get involved more. Have you signed
up at https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon? If not please
do. We would love you to come forward and take more responsibility.

Himanshu,
I never could figure you out, and I meant that as a compliment. I
mean, running your own company and taking this much time out of that
to sit at a registration desk and volunteer? I am not digging in, but
I am just too glad that you were on the team. Couldn't have placed the
stall in better hands on the second day while we were manning the
t-shirt stalls. Also, thanks for the bike ride. ;)

Finalized on your trip dates to Kochi? Give me a call once you pass
Calicut. I can probably meet you on your way as my home is in between
the highway from Calicut to Kochi. And dude, we really need to talk
about your sleep cycles. :D

Thank you, all of you, so much. I am neither exaggerating nor lying
when I say my faith in humanity only got strengthened after working
with all of you. Knowing that people have your back and that feeling
of being able to trust someone blindly; that's what makes a strong
community, a strong team.

I am sure by now I've lost most of you. :P That's my problem, I just
keep on writing when I am excited. Might not be the best work of
literature, but hey, it just goes to show how happy I am! :)

Let me start wrapping up by saying I would love for all of us to meet
again if possible. I know that not all of us are in Bangalore, and I
guess we can't do much about that either. Who all are in Bangalore
among us? Numan, Siva, Anand, Vanitha, Mahantesh, Meghana, Himanshu
and I, right? Let's try and see if we can catch up for lunch/tea (I
don't drink coffee :P) sometime.

I hope all of us come together sometime soon, although I feel it is
only going to be at next year's pycon. :/

Keep in touch, stay excellent, take care and hope to see y'all soon.

Until then,