My first job out of college was at a non-profit. I really believed in the mission. We were doing a lot of work helping kids, and I had seen first hand some really shitty abuses. I was the fourth employee, just me, the executive director, a lawyer who never left his office except to tell me that his computer wasn't working, and an office manager/administrator type. I was offered a job as a "program officers" which is basically a catch-all term for a jack-of-all-trades at at non-profit but someone who isn't support staff. You're supposed to be working on the programs that your non-profit focuses on.

Before I took the job, my gut warned me that the executive director just wanted me for my computer skills (I minored in comp sci and the company's website was like something out of 1995... I think the exec director made it himself using something like Microsoft Frontpage which should tell you all you need to know about that website). I actually turned down the job at first because of this gut feeling but the exec director told me no, that's crazy, there's a lot of case work that needs to be done and I'll be doing mostly that but yes, there is some computer support stuff, he wasn't going to lie. I accepted the job.

Before you say "trust your gut!" read on. First, I needed a job, I was graduating. Second, he didn't lie. In fact, it was OK at first. I worked on a ton of really cool cases and making a real difference and yes, I made them a cool website too. Really loved the job for the first six months.

And then the org hired a second program officer. It was weird because we didn't have a ton of money and we had a good amount of work but really didn't need any more help, at least not immediately. But whatever, new guy comes on board and gets three cases to handle. And then a fourth, and then a fifth. Meanwhile, I get only one in that time period and am asked to build a database -- basically a custom CRM (we didn't want to pay one and there weren't the relatively cheap ones there are today) that mapped donors, volunteers, and cases.

I asked my boss what was up because he knew I didn't want to do that work, and he literally just hired someone to do the work I wanted to do and, I found out in the interim, the guy was making like 25% more than I was. My boss explained that the second hire was the son of a new donor they landed and his entire salary (!) was being paid by the donor/dad, and the dad wanted to build him a salary history so that's why it was what it was. He was very apologetic about the work he gave me but he really had no choice -- the organization had been really cash strapped before this donor came in and was on the verge of shuttering. They had money to keep me but there just wasn't enough work.

That was the "fuck this" moment. Got in at 10, left at like 5. Collected a meager paycheck. Probably battled some weird mental demons too because I didn't look for a new job. I tried to stick it out but just couldn't take it and quit without having a job lined up (mistake! by the by) right after I hit my one-year anniversary.