Pros
Mission, lots of people who care about clients and our communities. Incredible volunteers.
Cons
Hours of driving (5-15 hour avg per week). Not enough people, resources, offices, vehicles to carry out the expectations National HQ has given the public and our communities. This creates a heavy burden on Disaster Program Managers since we are who the community sees. Program mandates keep expanding or require more people and resources keep getting cut. Unsustainably high turnovers, frequent structural changes. Incredibly high work hour demands (60-90 per week). Systems and structures aren't volunteer-friendly and no reasonable support exists to help volunteers or to soothe the frustrations over...except the DPMs/very few employees in the field. No support departments will be there to support you if you aren't in a major metro area. Even if you are a Disaster Program Manager, you are expected to be responsible to do work for everything from IT, HR, to the janitor if you are in a rural area. It's impossible to keep up with.
