What do you do when a former job won’t leave you alone? When you leave the job but the job doesn’t leave you? Its very frustrating, especially under the circumstances.

Working Woman

Work Never Ends!

Sometimes when I read the comments on this blog and others where I participate, I’m a little astonished at how many people seem to think that life is supposed to be ‘fair’ (whatever that means). People seem to think that whatever is going on is what will continue to go on forever. We take our prosperity and comfort for granted when, in fact, we are blessed beyond description and have more than any other civilization could have ever imagined possible. Still, we take it for granted as though it could never come to an end.

Of course that’s not at all the case.

Over a year ago I lost my job in a particularly brutal way. It was a job I had been at for many years. I had been the CEO of a successful non-profit agency. The thing was, it became too successful. Some of my board members decided to make it ‘for profit’ while still calling it ‘non-profit’. There was a lot of intrigue, back-stabbing, secrets and under handed scheming and manipulating. The makings of a nasty little novel based on the extent to which people will go for greed and power.

I was offered the opportunity to get in on the deal, but foolishly stood on principle and refused. I told the parties involved at the time that it simply wouldn’t work. When you change a non-profit into a ‘for profit’, even if you don’t admit to anyone that its for profit, then it changes the entire dynamic of the organization. Then decisions are made because of money as opposed to what the organization was there for, to take care of the needs of the people it was set up to serve. And if you are interested in making a profit, you will lose it by TRYING to make a profit.

I know that concept is counter-intuitive. But it had been my experience that the more I focused on making money the less the organization made. The more I focused on the purpose of the organization, the more money we made. People felt good about making donations to an organization in which they knew they donations were being used in a responsible manner. People would talk to me and felt comfortable entrusting their gifts to my discretion in how they were used. I told the board members involved that when that stopped, the donations would stop, rumors would start to spread and more donations would stop. Even though they were successful business people, you can’t run a charitable organization in exactly the same way you run a carpet company. You have to use good business practices, but there is an entirely other layer of dynamics that makes a charitable organization function well. They scoffed and said they were successful business people and I couldn’t tell them how to market the property and how to run the business. They were determined to make a profit on it.

There were other issues, of course. The board member behind the whole thing had a close friend who needed a job. Coincidentally, that woman got my job. Surprise, surprise. I knew some personal things about some the board members that I’m sure they didn’t like that I knew. I’m certain it made them uncomfortable considering that I wasn’t eager to join them in their big secret. So they had nothing to hold over me to keep me quiet.

Then they fired me and threatened me with a lawsuit if I told anyone what they were doing. I left, I haven’t and I still won’t. This is the most I’ve told - but frankly I don’t care anymore. I decided to just move on with my life.

The problem is that things are falling apart there now. They are hording donations and then having yard sales with what people have donated. This is angering people and rumors are starting in the community. They have gone on and fired most of the staff, cutting it down to a skeleton staff to save expenses. They have done their marketing thing, spending lots of money on glossy brochures and ads - the opposite of the comfortable hominess that had at one time attacked people to it. They hired an expensive marketing person whose sole job is to get people to leave the organization money in their wills. We used to get bequests because people liked how it was run. I understand they have gotten none since they hired this person.

Donations have dropped off. Funds have been cut. People are mad their donations are being turned away or sold in a yard sale and my phone is ringing off the hook.

People are calling me. I haven’t been there in over a year. And its been increasing over the last month. People want to know what is going on over there. I don’t know. I tell them they will have to call there if they have concerns. My former employees are calling asking what they should do about this, that or the other. They tell me one of the people the board hired in my place doesn’t know what she’s doing. She was a business woman, but didn’t know anything about non-profits and didn’t trust anyone to tell her. I tell them they need to talk to her, that I can’t tell them how to handle things there. Tonight one called and asked me to help them. She said things were miserable there and the place was falling apart. I told her I couldn’t help her. They need to work with things the way they are now.

They were so ugly to me when I left. I’ve been tempted to call some board members and tell them they need to give me a salary for dealing with all these phone calls and, oh by the way, they’ve got a problem on their hands. Another part of me feels bad that things are so bad there that people are calling me. Yet another part of me feels a little vindicated that I was right, they were wrong and they are suffering for treating me so badly. Then I feel guilty for feeling that.

I’ve said more here than I should. Its just on my mind.

What do you tell former employees when you want the gossip but don’t want to interfere with the new person? Then again, you really do because it was all so ugly and unfair to begin with. I know the answer I guess. I just find it perplexing that they are calling me and at some level I resent that one more second of my time is taken up by that place. If they hadn’t cheated me out of all the money they owed me I would be more charitable towards them. But they did and I’m not.