Many times I offer my time to help people in need when it comes to topics that I am very familiar with as what can take someone months to do I can potentially do it in a couple of hours or even minutes. What this got me to think is how recently I had someone volunteering their time to help me with a subject that they know more about and so I didn’t rush it or anything because they are offering their time. However, I got their report today and it was just full of errors that even I spotted to the point where it wasn’t usable in anyway. This wasn’t a paid service so my expectation wasn’t high and nor would I push it versus just thanking them for their time. But it makes you think, if you are a professional who is offering your time and service would you actually maintain your standards as if you were working for a paid client? Or would you be carefree because you are doing it for free?
I would be inclined to treat it as if it was a real client because the whole point in many cases with volunteering your time is to give people say a service that they can’t normally afford in hopes that it will help them to turn things around. You obviously have to have a limit in terms of what you can provide if you literally need to spend money. For example, I’m sure a professional chef that volunteers to cook for people in need wouldn’t be serving up A5 Wagyu.
But like there, as the professional chef I think most have standards to try and cook it as if you are a real customer with what they have to work with. That’s versus just treating it as if It doesn’t matter what you make as it’s free and they should like it. I think you should too as your reputation is in a sense being reviewed constantly as well.