Diary of a Patriotic Corper: Minding My Business

These days, I flee from any kind of stress that is unnecessary. And unlike before, when I cared too much about what people thought of me, people pleasing, I do what I have to do for my self-preservation as long as it's moral and not fazed by external opinions.

You see, a few days ago, I went on an unplanned adventure in a not-so-nearby town, obeying the clarion's call. It was meant to be a simple day—a regular one doing my thing and serving my country in the best way that I could. However, now I wish I had just stayed mellow and minded my business.

Why and how I was selected to be a part of the team to go for this health initiative wasn't made clear to me until the very moment I arrived at the assembly point. "Which one of you here is good with photography? We need someone who will cover the event and provide good photos and videos." Our inspector asked. I responded that I was, and so I volunteered to do the job.

I was then assigned to a woman who is in charge of everything media-related for the programme. And when I finally arrived with her, she began to give me instructions and brief me on exactly what she wanted. It was a lot of information to process and work with, but I didn't think of it as a problem as I understood the task. Or so I thought.

There were at least ten people that had to appear in the photos and videos, and the shots had to be good. Alongside that, I also covered other aspects of the events—the medicine and kits, the volunteers from another local government that were to serve as doctors and nurses, my team that served in other aspects, and the villagers we came to provide health care to. And with no prior briefing, I had to figure out how to go about all that on the fly. Again, no worries...

For hours, I went about doing what I deemed to be the task. In between it all, I had the media manager "re-instruct" me every now and then, implying regularly that I was doing the right things and wasting space at certain points. I wasn't fazed by that. The only problem I had was my phone overheating often and the storage filling up quickly. And the consequences of both are that I don't get to use the camera until it's cooled down, and there are chances of the phone misbehaving when the storage is full, also rendering the phone useless. So I had to be tactful.

I wasn't prepared, so I couldn't free up some space by temporarily moving some files to my PC. I circumvented my way around it anyway and let go of some movies and apps that I could get back later. As for the overheating problem, I simply bought two sachets of water and put my phone in between them each time it got too hot. That did the trick.

At the end of the day, after many hours of being on my feet, the media manager deemed many of my works "not useful." Well, that didn't bother me. She could say whatever she wanted, and there was no giving more than I could offer. Eventually, she tried to handpick the ones she wanted but couldn't finish because they had to leave.

For a second, I wondered why they'd be in a hurry to leave when they had one last important thing to do, which was to obtain the photos and videos they needed. And, also, they were the ones who arrived hours late and caused the programme to end late. Anyway, the conclusion was that I should send them all over the internet, on WhatsApp.

Before even proceeding to forward the videos, I requested that they pay for a sufficient internet subscription to have the works sent. I sure wasn't going to expend myself, as well as my own resources, for my own personal life when it wasn't a paid job. Thankfully, the needful was done, and they responded by providing...

I thought to myself, if I sent just the ones she handpicked—which she didn't even finish—they would probably come back to ask about some others that I didn't send. Rather than have that happen, I sent them all. After all, it was better to have excess, pick the useful ones, and discard the rest. And so, I sent them all.

Eventually, I had some random person reach out to me, asking about the "relevant" ones out of the ones I sent. And the person continued by stating that they had had to download many videos, and most of them weren't useful. Hence, they didn't want to have to download more "useless" ones, and so they just asked me to look through. I was immediately angered by such a request.

I hadn't even been commended or compensated for all the work I had done to get what I provided in the first place—not like I needed it—and then they wanted me to do the sorting? Their point was understandable, but I had to enlighten them that many of the videos seemed repeated because the reporters themselves were unprepared and had to make many takes. They barely even made their speeches in one go, and so the media manager said, "The editors will know what to do and merge the right ones."

I wasn't going to be paid, and neither was the job anything to be excited about, as it really wasn't my business. I only volunteered. I had to let them know that they were the ones to do the sorting and not me, and that it was even beginning to stress me.

Now, I have learned a lesson that I won't learn twice. This kind of thing will not repeat itself. They should have gotten an actual photographer to bother that much, and I should have minded my business. I had my entire schedule displaced, and I was unhappy about it.