Slow Time Tasks

During any receiving shift you may be caught with a full group of volunteers and absolutely no donations. What to do with so many willing hands and so few things to do? Slow Time Tasks!

• Offer breaks to volunteers who have not taken their allotted breaks, depending on length of their shift.
• Monitor Tetris
• Check boxes for properly wrapped cords.
• Cleaning.
• Break down boxes.
• Sort Anti-static bags, packaging material, and any of the other boxes along the front window.
• Empty Recycling bin and Cardboard rolling cart in hallway, along with recycling bins around table, etc. Take them around the back of the building, empty cardboard into big rolling bin and leave the Blue Recycling bin back near the other ones, bringing a new empty one back with you.
• Sort and move receiving boxes to their designated areas - e.g. advanced testing box to advanced testing, steel box to recycling.
• Clean and organize Basic Testing area where keyboards and mice are tested. Cut the cords on any damaged or dirty items and send to appropriate places. CBM for mice, rolling cart for dead keyboards.
• Sort and break down styrofoam, put it in a garbage bag and take to the warehouse. Preferably into sizes about the size of a fist or slightly bigger.
• Sort batteries, bag all rechargeable batteries to get them ready for shipping. There may be more in the warehouse if box on the shelf is empty. Please return rechargeable batteries, both packaged, and the batteries you weren't able to get to, back to the warehouse. If they are left in Receiving they may contaminated with other batteries, and packaged boxes will get unpackaged. http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Sorted_Batteries
• Ask the Recycling Warehouse if there are batteries to test (When tested, working ones can go to the store)
• Ask the Recycling Warehouse if there are drive rails to deconstruct (separate metal from plastic parts)
• Deconstruct floppy disks and sort into their components (Magnetic/non-magnetic metal,trash and dirty plastic) The flimsy circular media is trash. The hard plastic outer shell is dirty plastic. If there aren't any in Receiving, ask in the Recycling Warehouse (Please leave a backstock for Recycling!) The cloth from inside the disks does not need to be separated.
• Christmas lights aka Light strands - First verify whether the light strand works, if they do work, send to the store. Light strands with LEDs do not need to be disassembled. Have volunteers and staff wear gloves and safety glasses to prevent injury, specifically from broken bulbs. Remove any replaceable bulb covers, sometimes these come in various decorative shapes. Remove each bulb from the socket (little bit of plastic at the bottom of the bulb is ok to leave on), cut off the strands any bulbs that cannot be removed. Place bulbs in a plastic bag and put the bag in the Advanced Recycling box in Receiving, or bring to a Recycling staff member in the warehouse.

If none of these tasks lasts long enough and it doesn't look like there will be any donations, consider diverting volunteers to another area. (ex: Recycling Warehouse) -- But don't forget to ask the area coordinator, front desk, AND the volunteer!