The saga of my time with Company A comes to a close today. I already harboured a lot of negativity to the job and it probably goes back further than my first day on the job. Despite the setbacks, I was ready to try my best at this new job. It just took me some time to adjust to working there and to get in the right headspace. I poured a lot of energy into Company A, but it was not always easy to see the results. I couldn’t always tell whether or not my work was being valued, or whether things would be better if I wasn’t there. The feelings I never got off my chest began to collect and I in turn valued the committee, my workplace, and myself less. Just like before I found myself in a very similar place, handing in a resignation letter with no idea what I would do after. Here are some of the final straws that made me resign.

The Value of Others

I could see that the work I had been doing, was valued. Things were getting done. I was at the workplace at all kinds of hours to receive deliveries and tradespeople. The problem with Company A was that so many people volunteered their time whenever they could; it felt difficult to distinguish myself from them as a paid worker. At the end of community events most people left me alone to deal with the cleanup. That might’ve been fair because I was the only one paid to be on site. However after a while a pattern started to emerge; I was expected to clean up after everyone, set up before everyone arrived, stay later than most and hold the fort down while the committee took leave. It felt like I was there simply to deal with the things others didn’t want to.

The committee ran meetings, late at night once they had all come back from their own jobs. The meetings needed someone non-impartial to take minutes. Enter me, I thought this was an opportunity to hone my business skills and provide value to the team. Instead I often felt like I was being kept prisoner by members who rocked up late and who couldn’t keep track of meeting timelines. In one particular meeting I was only present for about 20 percent of it, because every other agenda was too classified for me. What kind of minutes would I have been able to contribute in the end?

The chain of command was a very interesting thing at this workplace too. I often felt powerless to enact change since many volunteers didn’t recognise my authority in the workplace. My suggestions were only really given value once it came from the mouth of the manager or a committee member. I was responsible for organising repairs and maintenance and often the committee had a favourite labourer who had done work for them previously. However these tradespeople were by now; too busy to assist our small organisation, retired, or had bad experiences from previous engagements with us. It left me to look for new contacts and get new quotes for work. Again, not a terrible life skill to have, however my 3-5 different job quotes were usually turned down by a committee member for being too expensive. At that point someone with another previously undisclosed contact would offer to help for a cheaper price. Not only was this system inefficient, but it felt like there was no point in what I was doing at all.

Later on another person was hired with a very similar set of work tasks to my own (If you remember in my last post, I wrote them). Soon enough that person was working in my sphere and our tasks overlapped. I remember approaching stakeholders about an important issue only to be told they had already had this discussion the other day with my colleague. Things were doubling up and I began to feel like I wasn’t needed there any more.

Communication can often help clear issues off the table and from inside us too.

I’ll never forget one particular interaction with a committee member. One time there was one very cool, very flash, event that our manager was planning outside the organisation. It sounded amazing, I wanted to go and since I was shadowing the manager almost every day, shouldn’t I be able to attend this cool new thing? No, was one of the committee member’s response, I wasn’t “on that level yet”. It was probably meant as a joke but I feel it put into words how most of the committee valued me. I still think this was an unfair perception about me, but it would be wrong for me not to mention that some of it was probably due to my own mistakes as well.

The Value of Oneself

When communicating with the committee some members could only be called, because they were too busy to read texts, and others could only be texted because they were too busy to take a call. I faced flat out reluctance for assistance with matters where a committee member had their actual name on the task. At other times it was so hard to get members to sit down in one spot because they had to drive off somewhere else. It was frustrating and in some ways it rubbed off on me. I had commitments outside of work too and decided on my own to start setting my own hours. Eventually this caught up with me and the committee was upset that I was never there when they wanted me to be there. It was vague, and it felt like the committee just wanted me around so they could call on me at their convenience, but I still feel that a part of that responsibility lay with me. 

The standard set by other committee members, was whatever they could give whenever they could give it. They too were doing this voluntarily. However just because their standard was the way it was, didn’t mean that I needed to lower my own standards to their level. It says a lot about the personality of someone if they can keep a high standard of work despite everything else falling apart around them. I didn’t need to de-value myself and the work I did, simply because others didn’t have time for Company A. It also would have been a good protective shield for me, as now the committee had a reason to target me. They blamed everything on me because of my poor attendance and standard of work; whereas I believe we all knew there were other factors at play, but my attitude is what stuck out.

Communication when things go wrong

This was also a problem at my previous job and it meant that I was put into situations I may not have needed to face. Communication can often help clear issues off the table and from inside us too. I was dragging around a lot of emotions as I continued working at this place.  I no longer valued being in my current situation and it felt like I wasn’t being valued either. My feelings built resentment in my heart towards the committee and towards a community organisation that does extremely beneficial work. I got to a point, again, where I felt the only way through was out. I didn’t want to discuss pay, hours, commitments, and I didn’t want to adjust anything. I just wanted out. 

The same could be said for the committee, maybe after a while they just tolerated my presence there. Something happened one day and it made my manager feel disrespected (I won’t cover it here, but it was definitely 100% my fault), he blurted out that the committee was already thinking about firing me. It was he who requested them to keep me on for a bit longer. I’ll never know if that was true or if it was simply a tactic to manipulate me, it doesn’t really matter anyway. It seems like there were a lot of feelings that were unsaid between both parties and had we actually tried and engaged with some of those things maybe both myself and the committee could’ve found closure.

After a while I started working again. I had secured a job immediately after quitting Company A, but rejected it. Many people questioned me, but I had just come out of a job that I rushed in to and I didn’t want to be hurt all over again. I’ll never know if that job would have been good for me, but a month and a half later I landed a similar job where my time and effort was valued. Things have finally been able to reset and I feel like I’m in a position where I can earn a living, enjoy working at the place, and make future decisions based on goals and aspirations rather than trying to make the best out of bad situation.