Last day in the office isn't just cake and pimms

Stefanie with cake on her last dayIt's Stefanie's last day in the office and she reminisces about some of the more interesting calls she's received in our supporter services unit in the blog relay - a whistle-stop tour of Greenpeace staff here in the UK. Click here to catch up on the other entries.

I work in the supporter service team with Chris and normally, when they are not borrowed by other teams, with Graham and Lisa. If you follow the blogs, you probably know that the supporter service team deals with subscriptions and donations, complaints and info requests. We are basically your first point of contact.

As we are frequently getting queries about issues Greenpeace is not working on and sometimes aren't even environmental, we also know quite a lot about other organisations so that we can refer people.

Referring can be a daunting business. Most people understand that Greenpeace, with all the support we are getting from our fantastic supporters and the good work we are doing with it, can't work on everything and they are grateful for the information. Others have heard about Greenpeace but don't know what we do and frustrated or even aggressive because we don't have a magic wand that can make their problem go away.

And then we get the disillusioned people. It can be very disheartening to see how little faith people have in the government, government departments, their local authorities or the police. These organisations are supposed to be there for the people, but the people are disappointed that those organisations are not interested and are not listening. How has it come to this? Why do we live in a country in which people are not heard anymore? In which people feel abandoned? The answer is that we let or are letting it happen. This is not what people want to hear, again they want someone else to solve their problem, but Greenpeace and other organisations can only do so much. In the end it's down to every one of us. 

And then sometimes a campaign comes along that really captures the imagination, like our Airplot campaign. The support and comments we received were just overwhelming and very encouraging. People thought that airport expansions (like Heathrow but also the other 10 or so around the country) are inevitable, but this campaign really has given them hope that we will stop the government and big business. Hopefully more people take this as encouragement to stand up for what they believe in.

It is also interesting to experience the different forms of denial, especially with regards to climate change. Let's face it people are not good with bad news. Get good news from the doctor, bank manager or Greenpeace and you are satisfied and go your way. Get bad news and the questions, arguments and demand for proof start. The most obvious form of denial is scepticism, where people hide behind alleged conspiracies and false science. I can understand this, because climate change is scary, but I don't think that burying your head in sand will do any good.

Then there are the people that blame others (because my neighbour, government, other countries etc. don't do their bit, what I do won't make a difference) and also the pessimists (it's too late anyway). Well, if we don't all do our bit, they might be proven right. I used to wonder how the Easter Islanders felt, when they chopped down their last remaining tress to build ever bigger statues instead of boats to fish and get food supplies. Now I wonder if we will find out how they felt.

Even with all those negative queries, it is great to know that the majority of our supporters are behind us and trust us with their money.