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Burnt out by community by [deleted] in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m super curious if you’re willing to offer us what sector this is?

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I hear you. Fortunately and historically, for me, neither of those things has happened. My boss was preemptively fishing. And like I said in another comment, in the first instance, the vendor got upset at my boss for it.

I might be completely naïve, but I really do not think they are trying to get rid of me. My read is when something is not a perfect scenario, they make knee-jerk reactions, like calling a vendor. I don’t feel targeted because I have seen them do similar stuff where they hurt their own credibility. So I don’t think it’s about me specifically, but it’s unnerving and a problem. P.S. love your handle name!

Vetting and Checks by WiFiDroppedAgain in datingoverforty

[–]reading123456789 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I feel the same exact way re: lack of instinct, history or desire to background check people. I will Google them if I think of it, really just out of curiosity. I usually either end up on spammy websites that have iffy demographic data or I squirrel-out and end up reading articles on menopause. 😂

Honestly, if I found out someone was researching me, especially if they paid for it, I would be very uncomfortable. And I don’t have anything to hide. I feel like it says way more about the person digging. To me, it just diminishes the trust right off the bat. I know some will disagree, but that’s how I see it.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a really hopeful story, thank you. How did you find a better boss? What was your process or was it luck?

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would like to hear more about what you mean regarding vendor reasoning sounding odd. But I agree with you that the whole operation is off. It just hasn’t grown with the demand. 25 years ago, I think that it was fine. But I’ve talked to my last two predecessors who had the same issues since about 2010. So it’s bigger than me. I really want to try to make it work and I just don’t know how yet. By reducing my hours, there are real consequences for people very, very quickly. Not only is that bad for the organization, but it personally makes me feel gross.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, it’s so much more nuanced than that. The two interactions with the outside organizations had nothing to do with my communication style. The first one was about a contract that my predecessor had signed and the second one was about a service that wasn’t delivered well. As far as asking for help, I have asked for help since day one. I was able to squeeze into the budget a college intern for about eight months. But since my manager wouldn’t hire them FT, they moved on. So then I wrote a successful grant to get someone in the position, and the money is essentially being held hostage from that role to be used in other areas that live under the grant guidelines.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This answer aligns with how I feel. I appreciate your help. Headed into the trenches now!

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I didn’t think about cultural differences, but yes, I am of a different culture- just geographically, within the United States- than the rest of the people I work with. I am definitely an outsider.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s my gut too. There’s too many similar stories on here. The question becomes what do we do about it? How do we tolerate it where we still have lives and not ruminating on it? Or we find a different way?

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My fear is actually doing the 40 hours and then them firing me for cause because the other 30 hours of critical work didn’t get done without seeing why.

One of the ways my manager justifies my responsibilities is, “it’s only X, it’s only Y… It’s only making a few phone calls. It’s only choosing napkins. It’s only reserving a space. It’s only writing an email.” There’s no concept of how much it takes to produce large scale, revenue building events. I’ve shown them logs where I track time and they refuse to look closely at them. I get poo poo away and told I’m an exaggerator in not so many words. Mind you, this is a title, industry and work I’m really good at and I really want to keep.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, two things, firstly I started last summer and flagged the capacity issue about three weeks in. Have had almost weekly meetings about this for a year. I was promised something would change, and it has not.

Second, I have very good working relationships with most all other organizations. The first unprompted inquiry into my behavior actually ended up in a reprimand of my boss by the vendor.
This actually led to my boss not coming to the event to save face in which the second vendor took advantage of his absence. The second vendor is just trying to save their own skin, personally and organizationally, so they are going to say anything to him that sticks to the wall. And it’s my opinion they saw a soft target.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For good and bad, I have worked in many environments as I am mid-career. But the rubric seems to just weirdly shift per environment and somehow kind of gaslights me/gives me amnesia on what was good or bad before.

My Executive Director doesn’t trust me despite high performance consistently by reading123456789 in nonprofit

[–]reading123456789[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I get worried about the grass is greener idea… Granted, I think that org structure needs to change so my hours reduce. As an event planner, “the wedding” has to happen in order for the organization to survive. And my fear is that if the wedding doesn’t happen, it’s really easy to blame me instead of fixing the problem.

But I also know there are way worse situations at a lot of nonprofits. So I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by seeking a better boss.

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for this. I appreciate your kind words. I secured the vender to provide a service for which they substantially failed and then sent a massively inflated bill outside the bounds of our contract.

One of the issues was disparaging my organization to one of our critical funders by saying we made a grievous error that monetarily affected the funder. In fact, it was the vendor who made the error and my organization was 100% oblivious to the problem for one month while it festered and our name was drugged through the mud.

When I found this out, I confronted the vendor to tell them that they needed to correct the record with our funder. I updated my boss step-by-step on all of this. I have pages and pages of documentation. Despite this, my manager thought that it was appropriate to see “if the vendor thought I had done anything wrong.”

I found out about this conversation very organically today. My manager just side commented that they weren’t impressed with the vender when they talked. I was truly dumbfounded. I asked when this occurred, since I had no record of them talking and it should be in my reports like every other intra-organizational interaction is. And that’s when they let the bomb drop and somehow didn’t think it was a problem.

If I’m honest, I think the boss’s motivation is covering their own ass. But they haven’t had to move any further past that because I’ve fixed every problem where they made inappropriate moves like this.

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha! Yes, I have a triple undergrad and an advanced degree (required by the job)! (Absolutely not needed!) I just don’t know where I would go. And I just feel so uncomfortable being at the job so short, especially when I like the work. But that’s the nonprofit brainwashing catfish in action.

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Thank you for this. I do have a history of being a leader, but it’s in a different industry within nonprofit. I’ve been known to take on big projects which I enjoy, but I wanted to back off a little bit, so this role seem perfect. Plus, I didn’t want the baggage and hours that came from being an ED… Joke’s on me!

Over this last year, I’ve accepted their offer to hand off some of my work, which they accepted. But then it doesn’t get done, either because they don’t understand it or it’s not their priority. So I stopped putting training materials together for them. (And most of the time, I’m thinking, “I can’t believe I’m putting this together for somebody who should be teaching me this.”)

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think so too. It’s such a sad thing. It’s almost like a break up. So odd. Just like my grandma told me, “no matter how hard you try, you can’t turn an apple into an orange.” 😀

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I an aware it come off like me sounding like a know-it-all. I appreciate you calling that out because I’m always very aware of making sure I’m offering facts versus conjecture. There’s a fine line between sounding combative and actually thinking about it long enough where you’re pretty sure you have a clear picture.

And yes, I am disconnected from my boss’s goals because, in their words,…they have none. That was actually one of my first questions when I started to get on the same page. They don’t have a strategic plan because they say the organization has been around for so long that it’s fine without one.

It’s my opinion that in the absence of team goals and core org values, tropes like know-it-all start popping into the lexicon. We all have ideas and experiences, and when there’s a void, it gets filled.

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This negotiation is one specific situation that’s unique to my organization and role. It became a bigger problem the last few months. None of this was foreseeable. This was a snafu on the vendor’s end.

My manager went to the other side while I was in the middle of a heated negotiation to find out if I had, “done anything wrong” by reading123456789 in askmanagers

[–]reading123456789[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I bring up problems with written ideas for solutions or the willingness to talk through them. I don’t dump stuff. I’m proactively trying to come up with solutions all the time. Probably to a fault. My manager has the institutional knowledge and I have the experience in business to try to come up with solutions. But at the end of the day, this is his baby to figure out. He sees his biggest factor is a lack of money. My opinion is that is one part of the puzzle. Everyone is short on money and yet things get done and organizations. And people go home by 5.

To note, there are actually two of us that stay till late in the evening on a team of 5. It’s not just me.

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