Over the years I've posted on "not looking for a job"...
Spouse has been semi-ER since at least 2001 and she fully ER'd from the Navy Reserve two years ago, but she's spent the last few years volunteering for a non-profit. (It's a tiny niche that most people have never heard of, and its mission is not germane to this post.) It operates nationwide but its HQ is on the Mainland. Spouse's impression of the HQ staff is that they're not paid enough to retain the employees they need, let alone the skilled and the decision makers. Their turnover is exceedingly high for everyone except the completely incompetent. HQ is thus very bad at maintaining processes, providing templates for reports, keeping historical records, and at delegating. The front-line troops have a very low opinion of the REMFs but so far spouse has enjoyed completing the mission more than she's been frustrated by HQ.
Spouse was initially recruited specifically to make decisions on Oahu. (The HQ execs have decided that they can't properly do it from the Mainland.) Her duties, a couple hours a week, involve recruiting more local volunteers and working with the non-profit's "beneficiaries". Her specialty is bringing order out of chaos, she has a lot of street cred with the beneficiaries, and she's staying on the island instead of moving frequently. However the minute she began doing what she does so well she started running into HQ disagreements over what needs to be done, what she wants to do, and what HQ "allows" her to do. It's all too typical for spouse to tell HQ that something needs to happen within 48 hours, only for HQ to respond that it won't happen-- or to not respond at all. Admittedly the non-profit's top donor is a major corporation which avoids fraud/waste by only sending out the non-profit's products when HQ provides them with the beneficiary's name/mailing address. Unfortunately HQ's "process" means the beneficiary has to jump through a number of hoops before getting on the mailing list, and that can frequently turn into a time-sensitive crisis. Spouse wants to train her beneficiaries on her own and have a few units of HQ's packages stored in our garage for her to hand out when appropriate, but we are beginning to realize that HQ may never value their volunteers that much.
Spouse is reimbursed for her expenses, but she doesn't want the money. (She doesn't need it, either.) However if she turned down the money then she'd screw up a good deal for the rest of the nation's volunteers. So she takes the money and anonymously donates it back to the non-profit. I don't think they've recognized the correlation between what they reimburse her and what is anonymously donated.
Last month the CEO visited Oahu for a meet & greet. Spouse spent a couple of runaround days one-on-one with the CEO getting her to VIP calls, presenting Oahu's unique needs, and explaining how she really wants to volunteer her time. The CEO finally said "We'd like to make you a full member of the team!" and offered her a 15 hour/week job. Clearly the CEO recognizes talent when she sees it, but she does not recognize the ER mindset. Spouse said she'd accept the job, but only for 10 hours/week. The CEO started to ask about salary but spouse said "I'd rather talk about training me to handle everything else and then giving me the authority to do what needs to be done around here." CEO happily agreed.
Now spouse has been elevated to the status of a paid member of HQ who happens to do her duties on Oahu. She doesn't want/need that money, either, but she doesn't want to screw up a good deal for any other volunteers who might someday also be hired like this. She's planning to put her W-2 salary in her Roth IRA and then anonymously donate that amount from taxable accounts back to the organization.
She's traveling to that Mainland HQ next month to be certified to give the training, and maybe she'll persuade them to give her a few packages for the garage. However she's already regretting that she once again has a job. It's not the organization or its HQ staff-- those issues would exist whether she's an employee or a volunteer. The problem is that she's gone from being a "valued volunteer" to being a valued headcount. She's become a Dilbert.
The corporate philosophy appears to value volunteers more than employees. They have to or they wouldn't have any volunteers. However they appear to be paying their employees to waste their time on "mandatory briefings" and administrivia instead of actually accomplishing the mission, let alone supporting the front-line volunteers.
"Dilbert" started the minute the CEO got back to HQ. Spouse was supposed to be given VPN access to the HQ's network and its legendary database. This required nearly an entire afternoon on the phone with IT support, who has never had to configure the network in this manner and who certainly didn't want to do it with Firefox or Safari instead of IE8. (Hey, he's lucky we still have a Windows computer.) Then there's the issue of HQ doing everything in the latest version of MS Office, which spouse does not have, and using OpenOffice converters to read Office documents. A few hours later when she was finally granted access to the database, she found out that its files are either empty or filled with crap. No written procedures or "how to" manuals, no corporate history, no templates, no e-mail archives. But, hey, she has access!
Next she was "assigned" an HQ e-mail address, which of course is already part of HQ's e-mail groups. This was intended to be a good idea, just like adding her to the network, but it took her a few days to realize that HQ staff had stopped sending to her volunteer's personal e-mail address that she's been using with them for the last few years. I guess instead of reading her Gmail she was expected to log into the HQ VPN and read her "corporate" address with Outlook? So it took her another few days to get HQ staff to go back to her Gmail e-mail address. There's some residual HQ whining that she won't be able to read the group e-mails about 401(k)s and performance reviews and the menu for the HQ picnic. I predict that every new HQ employee will default to her network e-mail address instead of her "real" e-mail address. But if she has enough authority to do her job without them then she might not need to read their e-mail anyway.
Two days later HQ's inch-thick envelope arrived in the snail mail. Oboy, it contained her job application and her HR package! (HR has been outsourced to another company who shall also be nameless.) The first sheet she pulled out of the package was the signature page to acknowledge the company's sexual harassment policy, something that apparently volunteers weren't eligible to know. She had a good time filling out the package's cover page, but it turned into drudgery when it got to the W-4, the state tax HW-4, and the DHS I-9. (Ironically she's now being paid to endure 10 hours/week of this drudgery.) She filled out the parts she cared about and decided that HR could live without the rest. A couple hours later, hoping to drag HR into the 21st century, she scanned in her forms and e-mailed them. The (outsourced) HR clerk has not been amused at actually having to print & file her own copies instead of getting signed originals. HR is extremely skeptical of our claims that neither spouse nor I have cell phones or work phone numbers. Spouse was also required to scan in her driver's license and her military ID to "prove" her employability, which apparently was never required when she was a mere valued volunteer.
Spouse does not tolerate fools gladly, and she blew a small gasket when HR "required" her to submit a file copy of her resume with work/school history. (What if they review her resume and decide she's no longer qualified for the job?!?) "I don't have a resume, I'm retired" was also met with disbelief. Eventually the HR clerk was referred to the CEO to decide what's legally necessary and what's just "HR policy".
Another HQ staffer helpfully informed spouse how to dial in for the weekly (two-hour-plus) conference call. Volunteers would never put up with this, but valued employees are expected to be alert for any pearls of wisdom that HQ staff may mention as they recount their weekly efforts to a spellbound audience. Spouse told HQ that our AT&T calling card doesn't support conference calls. And, no, she doesn't have a cell phone with free nationwide calls, do they have a problem with that? Thank you.
Thank goodness that spouse is below the threshold for medical benefits and 401(k)s. I've never read an employee manual before, but I was not impressed by this one.
I feel sorry for HQ. They expect to be training spouse, but when she arrives in HQ I bet that more training flows from her to them. I wonder if the CEO is trying to tell her HQ staff something about supporting the front-line troops. I wonder if they're going to send her a network-access-ready laptop with all the right software, and a cell phone programmed to dial into the weekly conference call. Our tax-free donations at work, folks.
Spouse still doesn't know how much she's being paid. Whatever it is, it's not worth it.
... but now it's happened to spouse.
Spouse has been semi-ER since at least 2001 and she fully ER'd from the Navy Reserve two years ago, but she's spent the last few years volunteering for a non-profit. (It's a tiny niche that most people have never heard of, and its mission is not germane to this post.) It operates nationwide but its HQ is on the Mainland. Spouse's impression of the HQ staff is that they're not paid enough to retain the employees they need, let alone the skilled and the decision makers. Their turnover is exceedingly high for everyone except the completely incompetent. HQ is thus very bad at maintaining processes, providing templates for reports, keeping historical records, and at delegating. The front-line troops have a very low opinion of the REMFs but so far spouse has enjoyed completing the mission more than she's been frustrated by HQ.
Spouse was initially recruited specifically to make decisions on Oahu. (The HQ execs have decided that they can't properly do it from the Mainland.) Her duties, a couple hours a week, involve recruiting more local volunteers and working with the non-profit's "beneficiaries". Her specialty is bringing order out of chaos, she has a lot of street cred with the beneficiaries, and she's staying on the island instead of moving frequently. However the minute she began doing what she does so well she started running into HQ disagreements over what needs to be done, what she wants to do, and what HQ "allows" her to do. It's all too typical for spouse to tell HQ that something needs to happen within 48 hours, only for HQ to respond that it won't happen-- or to not respond at all. Admittedly the non-profit's top donor is a major corporation which avoids fraud/waste by only sending out the non-profit's products when HQ provides them with the beneficiary's name/mailing address. Unfortunately HQ's "process" means the beneficiary has to jump through a number of hoops before getting on the mailing list, and that can frequently turn into a time-sensitive crisis. Spouse wants to train her beneficiaries on her own and have a few units of HQ's packages stored in our garage for her to hand out when appropriate, but we are beginning to realize that HQ may never value their volunteers that much.
Spouse is reimbursed for her expenses, but she doesn't want the money. (She doesn't need it, either.) However if she turned down the money then she'd screw up a good deal for the rest of the nation's volunteers. So she takes the money and anonymously donates it back to the non-profit. I don't think they've recognized the correlation between what they reimburse her and what is anonymously donated.
Last month the CEO visited Oahu for a meet & greet. Spouse spent a couple of runaround days one-on-one with the CEO getting her to VIP calls, presenting Oahu's unique needs, and explaining how she really wants to volunteer her time. The CEO finally said "We'd like to make you a full member of the team!" and offered her a 15 hour/week job. Clearly the CEO recognizes talent when she sees it, but she does not recognize the ER mindset. Spouse said she'd accept the job, but only for 10 hours/week. The CEO started to ask about salary but spouse said "I'd rather talk about training me to handle everything else and then giving me the authority to do what needs to be done around here." CEO happily agreed.
Now spouse has been elevated to the status of a paid member of HQ who happens to do her duties on Oahu. She doesn't want/need that money, either, but she doesn't want to screw up a good deal for any other volunteers who might someday also be hired like this. She's planning to put her W-2 salary in her Roth IRA and then anonymously donate that amount from taxable accounts back to the organization.
She's traveling to that Mainland HQ next month to be certified to give the training, and maybe she'll persuade them to give her a few packages for the garage. However she's already regretting that she once again has a job. It's not the organization or its HQ staff-- those issues would exist whether she's an employee or a volunteer. The problem is that she's gone from being a "valued volunteer" to being a valued headcount. She's become a Dilbert.
The corporate philosophy appears to value volunteers more than employees. They have to or they wouldn't have any volunteers. However they appear to be paying their employees to waste their time on "mandatory briefings" and administrivia instead of actually accomplishing the mission, let alone supporting the front-line volunteers.
"Dilbert" started the minute the CEO got back to HQ. Spouse was supposed to be given VPN access to the HQ's network and its legendary database. This required nearly an entire afternoon on the phone with IT support, who has never had to configure the network in this manner and who certainly didn't want to do it with Firefox or Safari instead of IE8. (Hey, he's lucky we still have a Windows computer.) Then there's the issue of HQ doing everything in the latest version of MS Office, which spouse does not have, and using OpenOffice converters to read Office documents. A few hours later when she was finally granted access to the database, she found out that its files are either empty or filled with crap. No written procedures or "how to" manuals, no corporate history, no templates, no e-mail archives. But, hey, she has access!
Next she was "assigned" an HQ e-mail address, which of course is already part of HQ's e-mail groups. This was intended to be a good idea, just like adding her to the network, but it took her a few days to realize that HQ staff had stopped sending to her volunteer's personal e-mail address that she's been using with them for the last few years. I guess instead of reading her Gmail she was expected to log into the HQ VPN and read her "corporate" address with Outlook? So it took her another few days to get HQ staff to go back to her Gmail e-mail address. There's some residual HQ whining that she won't be able to read the group e-mails about 401(k)s and performance reviews and the menu for the HQ picnic. I predict that every new HQ employee will default to her network e-mail address instead of her "real" e-mail address. But if she has enough authority to do her job without them then she might not need to read their e-mail anyway.
Two days later HQ's inch-thick envelope arrived in the snail mail. Oboy, it contained her job application and her HR package! (HR has been outsourced to another company who shall also be nameless.) The first sheet she pulled out of the package was the signature page to acknowledge the company's sexual harassment policy, something that apparently volunteers weren't eligible to know. She had a good time filling out the package's cover page, but it turned into drudgery when it got to the W-4, the state tax HW-4, and the DHS I-9. (Ironically she's now being paid to endure 10 hours/week of this drudgery.) She filled out the parts she cared about and decided that HR could live without the rest. A couple hours later, hoping to drag HR into the 21st century, she scanned in her forms and e-mailed them. The (outsourced) HR clerk has not been amused at actually having to print & file her own copies instead of getting signed originals. HR is extremely skeptical of our claims that neither spouse nor I have cell phones or work phone numbers. Spouse was also required to scan in her driver's license and her military ID to "prove" her employability, which apparently was never required when she was a mere valued volunteer.
Spouse does not tolerate fools gladly, and she blew a small gasket when HR "required" her to submit a file copy of her resume with work/school history. (What if they review her resume and decide she's no longer qualified for the job?!?) "I don't have a resume, I'm retired" was also met with disbelief. Eventually the HR clerk was referred to the CEO to decide what's legally necessary and what's just "HR policy".
Another HQ staffer helpfully informed spouse how to dial in for the weekly (two-hour-plus) conference call. Volunteers would never put up with this, but valued employees are expected to be alert for any pearls of wisdom that HQ staff may mention as they recount their weekly efforts to a spellbound audience. Spouse told HQ that our AT&T calling card doesn't support conference calls. And, no, she doesn't have a cell phone with free nationwide calls, do they have a problem with that? Thank you.
Thank goodness that spouse is below the threshold for medical benefits and 401(k)s. I've never read an employee manual before, but I was not impressed by this one.
I feel sorry for HQ. They expect to be training spouse, but when she arrives in HQ I bet that more training flows from her to them. I wonder if the CEO is trying to tell her HQ staff something about supporting the front-line troops. I wonder if they're going to send her a network-access-ready laptop with all the right software, and a cell phone programmed to dial into the weekly conference call. Our tax-free donations at work, folks.
Spouse still doesn't know how much she's being paid. Whatever it is, it's not worth it.
)
