Merit Badges (Thrift Store)

Merit Badges are an experiment in volunteer/staff training being rolled out in the Thrift Store. It is in its beta stage, but we are going to start using it and develop the program on the fly.

The basic idea

A four-tiered path to mastery based loosely on the Cub Scouts' model, where there are four milestones, each requiring a subset of training, education the the demonstration of skills.

The first implementation will be rather unattractive and scrappy, as we prototype the tiers/steps. Once we settle on a workable model, we will put work into making the system more usable and attractive.

The steps

The basic framework is as follows:

Enter the program

The first step to working in the store is to go through the basic orientation. This includes tiny, fussy steps such as:

• signing a volunteer agreement
• getting on the store list
• Printing out a merit badge sheet (the doc that would be used to track progress. may be physical, may live here)

Milestones

These represent the four major leaps forward. Each milestone would have a set of four required badges, and four elective badges. Once the appropriate badges have been received, the final step to advancing to the next milestone is to effectively train another person in x-amount of required badges (2?).

Badges

Badges represent specific areas of learning. They may require full understanding of a particular area, or could be further broken into basic, intermediate and advanced levels. Each Milestone would have four critical badges that would be required. Additionally, there would be a list of potential elective badges, representing useful, non-critical skills that we need to have around, but don't need every single person to accomplish.

Worksheets

Each badge would have a corresponding "worksheet," essentially a list of specific skills that need to be trained in order to earn the badge.

The worksheets gauge small steps and ensure all areas are covered.

How it works together

The Mouse Ball

The hornwormed tobacco mule, or whatever it's called

• Orientation
  • get on email list
  • sign agreement
  • create merit badge sheet
  • punting ("I don't know!")

The Raccoon

• Triage
• Putting stuff away

The Squirell

• Neatening
• Getting stuff out of here (Receiving, AT)

The Gopher.

• Basic fetching of gizmos and supplies from other areas (80%)

Any four from the list (which doesn't exist yet!)

The Price Gun

• Basic Pricing (80%)
• Basic Till Operations (80%)
• Basic Customer Service (80%)
• Advanced Stocking (20%)

The Abacus

• Advanced Customer Service (20%)
• Advanced Till Operations (20%)
• Advanced Pricing (20%)
• Basic Volunteer Management

The Whistle

The equivalent of knighting someone. Someone with a whistle can be scheduled to work a shift, solo. It's hard to imagine a sitch where a whistled person wasn't getting paid, frankly. Existing subs would likely get a fast-track through this stage, given the demands of their regular positions. Easy to test-out, as any paid position here requires similar attributes...

These aren't so much trainable skills/tasks for volunteers, but qualities that need to be observed under fire; once you get so far, we start to keep an eye out for potential "whistletude." Obviously, the hardest thing to codify.

Possible areas for badges:

• Demonstrate diplomacy and wit (the bonobo?),
• project management (the ant?)
• system-level improvements (the fiji banded iguana? [can't think of anything here, but I like the name: FBI])
• effective and appropriate use of mom-jokes (the Tony?)
• brush-fire extinguishing (making an angry customer leave happy, without capitulating [the buffalo? orca?])
• creating effective signs (the honeybee?)
• suggesting and implementing procedural/structural changes (this may be asking too much [])
• documentation (the scribe?), etc.

Implementation

Each trainee would have a sheet posted in a public place to display their progress.

The details of specific badges/requirements would live on the wiki.

each merit badge and tier earned would be recorded on the paper sheet, via applying a color sticker, (which involves the cooperation of our fickle mistress, Dazzle). Alternately, the whole thing could live on the wiki. Or instead of custom, dazzle-dependent sticker, it could rely on filling in symbols on the sheet by hand.

Advancements of tier levels would involve a ceremony and a trinket. Woo-Hoo!

The badges would allow for easier and more effective co-cooridination of our volunteers (clearly visible paths to mastery for the trainer/trainee).

Also could include a yoda step to actually achieve the next tier, involving training someone else on so many badges (requiring someone train a whole tier would be silly, imho).

If this protocol actually proves effective, we might budget some things to see it through, such as volunteer rewards (actual, acme thunderers) and aprons to affix badges to. The store would be a classier place if everyone wore a shop-apron.Tonyc 07:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)