Top 8 cases of volunteering that are abused, it smells like confusion

1. The 2024 Olympic Games

It is obviously the news that takes us out a little through the eyes, the ears, and all the orifices as well as all the pores of the skin. The Paris Olympics are recruiting a large number of volunteers, 45,000 to be precise. Already, it’s annoying. The experience is presented as “the adventure of a lifetime and the opportunity to share unique emotions”, it is even more annoying. But the worst thing is that volunteers will not be paid for travel or accommodation and will only have one meal a day offered, all of this over a period of 10 days. So as much to say that the volunteers will have to burst their PEL to participate in this beautiful project.

2. Puy du fou

If there are two things that everyone knows about Puy du Fou it is:

– That it’s not really a well, moreover, you’ll notice that it’s not written the same.

– That many volunteers participate in the creation of its shows.

So in itself they do what they want, all of this is done with consent. BUT GOOD, if we look a little at the financing of Le Puy, we see that the significant profits generated could largely make it possible to remunerate the volunteers rather than to put themselves full of the excavations. Moreover, its president Nicolas de Villiers calmly declares “If you ask a volunteer at Puy-du-Fou if he wants to be an employee, he will answer you: If tomorrow I am an employee, I will stop”. Well let’s see.

3. Urban Outfitters

A few years ago, the Urban Outfitters brand hit the headlines with a scandalous ad in which employers offered employees to come and work as a volunteer on a weekend in October (the brand’s peak activity) with the simple reward of a lunch provided. A nice scam from a brand that had already earned more than 100 million dollars in net profit since the beginning of the year.

4. Theater ushers

It is still very common to spend an evening at the theater (after stealing a blindasse) and to see the strange inscription “the ushers are paid with tips”. Why ? How ? Well imagine that with regard to labor law, it is not considered as volunteering. Ushers even have payslips based on tips collected. So yes I cheat, but admit that it is abused.

5. The concept of wwoofing

In itself wwoofing is a super cool thing: traveling in an alternative way by offering help to an organic farm in exchange for room and board. The opportunity to do things a little more interesting than burning your rind on the beach all day, but which can also lead to some excesses. Again because the status of volunteer is not clearly determined, the “wwoofers” are therefore not protected in the event of accidents and their missions are not clearly determined. If in most cases everything goes very well, this hybrid status can naturally lead to abuse.

6. Stop working to raise your kids

I don’t see what other name you can give to the concept of taking care of your children, feeding them, taking them to school and educating them without any form of compensation without considering it as volunteering. See you. Well no, not hello because the top is finished but you see what I mean.

7. When we post stuff on social networks

We told you once about the times when you work for a company without knowing it, well, everything you post on social networks, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Tik tok (or even LinkedIn), more or less amounts to working for these companies, without being paid so YES, I think we can talk about abusive volunteering.

8. Whit Monday when we come to work when we should be on a public holiday how drunk is that?

Well ok it’s not really volunteering but let’s say it’s a day when our employer can force us to work when it is normally a holiday, so technically we are well paid that day but we do not benefit from the increase public holidays AND THAT, IT FUCK DOWN THE female dog.