I don’t even know where to start with this one. Warning, this’ll be a long one.
For the last year, I’ve worked at a small nonprofit with a staff of 5-6. I started out running the social media pages, and eventually was moved up to doing the financial work, such as recording orders through the website, writing checks, etc.
For a little backstory, when I first started, I was only working a few hours a week. I had noticed one of my coworkers, who was doing the finances at the time, mention on multiple occasions that she had nothing to do, and scroll through her phone for the remainder of her hours. I took this to mean that if all of our normal work was done, we were allowed to fill in the time with other things. I took this extra time to do homework, as I am a college student currently working towards my associates. My (ex) boss seemed really relaxed, so I believed as long as my work was done, there were no issues.
From the time I started there, one of the women who worked there, who I will call Ally, seemed not to like me. She often spoke to me in a condescending tone, or was quick to snap on me for small things. I took this as her simply thinking of me as a child (I started working there at 18) and tried not to take it to heart. However, in the past few weeks, not only did she seem more hostile towards me, one of my other coworkers did too. On one occasion, all of them had been working in a different room than our office, and I had gone downstairs to ask a question, hoping to sit with them, as I was sick of sitting in the office alone. When I went into the other room, I set my laptop on the table, and began to move some items out of my way, which I had assumed belonged to my boss’ kids. As it turned out, they were Ally’s things. When she saw me moving them, she stood up and began moving them, seemingly irritated. I immediately apologized and told her I would sit somewhere else, and she snapped at me and said it was fine, and then told me I didn’t need to be down there anyway since we would all be upstairs for the staff meeting soon anyway. I immediately apologized and went back upstairs, and I was hurt, but I didn’t say anything.
While doing the finances there, a large part of my job was writing checks for instructors who ran programs there, such as gymnastics or karate. When writing those checks, I had to pull information from several different sources: website orders, invoices (which often went unpaid), cash, checks, etc. This often made it difficult to find all of the information I needed to write checks. I also struggled at times with missing information from signups, which was something that Ally put together, and I was generally afraid to ask her to make any changes to the website for fear of being snapped at. At some point, this apparently led to significant mistakes being made in writing checks.
Here is where I am feeling a little lost. On Friday afternoon, my boss sat down with me and informed me about these mistakes in writing checks. Apparently her and the board president had done an internal audit, and determined that we owed a couple of the instructors a few hundred dollars. When I asked her where she found this information, she gave me a vague answer and didn’t elaborate. She told me that they had investigated how these mistakes could have happened, and that someone had brought up me doing homework there. She claimed that she was not aware of that, even though I had mentioned it to her several times.
Before I tell you this part, I want to explain- I realize what I did here is stupid. To complete our work, each of us was provided with a laptop. I felt odd using my google account which was associated with the organization to do my homework, so I had logged into my personal Google account on my work laptop to complete my homework. I realize now I should not have done that, I didnt know any better at the time. The insane part to me, is that instead of sitting down with me and asking about the mistakes, or if I was doing homework while I was there, my boss went through the search history of my personal Google account. She had it printed out, with the times I had done homework highlighted when she sat down with me. I realize it was a company computer, but I feel violated that she went through my personal data without even asking me about the issue first. She then told me that apparently me doing homework there was time theft, and that she would need to let me go.
I guess my issue is that I feel as though there should have been some sort of conversation or warning before I was terminated. I was only doing what I had seen others do, I didn’t know it was wrong. I had completed all of my other work before I ever did anything that wasn’t company related. I also don’t understand why nobody asked me how the checks could have been so messed up before jumping straight to going through my search history. I felt violated and blindsided.
In the last few weeks I worked there, I felt very isolated from my other coworkers. Ally and my other coworker often sat in the other room without even saying hello to me, and I started to believe they didn’t want me around. I almost feel as though one of them ‘tattled’ on me for doing homework. I know of several things my other coworkers did which would’ve warranted warnings, if not termination, which I never brought up for fear of being ‘that person’. Things such as cancelling events and not contacting those who had signed up to let them know, scheduling events on top of other events and then expecting the first thing scheduled to be cancelled, etc. I never even brought up the way Ally treated me in a serious manner, as I didn’t want to get her in trouble. Now, I almost feel like I should have brought these mistakes up.
I don’t know what I meant to accomplish with this post. I know it’s long and I thank anyone who’s read this far in. I guess it was just nice to put my feelings out there. I’m sure there’s some things I left out, but I’ll definitely answer any questions in the comments if anyone has any. Either way, thanks for listening. I’d love to hear y’all’s opinions on my crazy life lol.
Comments
Backup of the post’s body: I don’t even know where to start with this one. Warning, this’ll be a long one.
For the last year, I’ve worked at a small nonprofit with a staff of 5-6. I started out running the social media pages, and eventually was moved up to doing the financial work, such as recording orders through the website, writing checks, etc.
For a little backstory, when I first started, I was only working a few hours a week. I had noticed one of my coworkers, who was doing the finances at the time, mention on multiple occasions that she had nothing to do, and scroll through her phone for the remainder of her hours. I took this to mean that if all of our normal work was done, we were allowed to fill in the time with other things. I took this extra time to do homework, as I am a college student currently working towards my associates. My (ex) boss seemed really relaxed, so I believed as long as my work was done, there were no issues.
From the time I started there, one of the women who worked there, who I will call Ally, seemed not to like me. She often spoke to me in a condescending tone, or was quick to snap on me for small things. I took this as her simply thinking of me as a child (I started working there at 18) and tried not to take it to heart. However, in the past few weeks, not only did she seem more hostile towards me, one of my other coworkers did too. On one occasion, all of them had been working in a different room than our office, and I had gone downstairs to ask a question, hoping to sit with them, as I was sick of sitting in the office alone. When I went into the other room, I set my laptop on the table, and began to move some items out of my way, which I had assumed belonged to my boss’ kids. As it turned out, they were Ally’s things. When she saw me moving them, she stood up and began moving them, seemingly irritated. I immediately apologized and told her I would sit somewhere else, and she snapped at me and said it was fine, and then told me I didn’t need to be down there anyway since we would all be upstairs for the staff meeting soon anyway. I immediately apologized and went back upstairs, and I was hurt, but I didn’t say anything.
While doing the finances there, a large part of my job was writing checks for instructors who ran programs there, such as gymnastics or karate. When writing those checks, I had to pull information from several different sources: website orders, invoices (which often went unpaid), cash, checks, etc. This often made it difficult to find all of the information I needed to write checks. I also struggled at times with missing information from signups, which was something that Ally put together, and I was generally afraid to ask her to make any changes to the website for fear of being snapped at. At some point, this apparently led to significant mistakes being made in writing checks.
Here is where I am feeling a little lost. On Friday afternoon, my boss sat down with me and informed me about these mistakes in writing checks. Apparently her and the board president had done an internal audit, and determined that we owed a couple of the instructors a few hundred dollars. When I asked her where she found this information, she gave me a vague answer and didn’t elaborate. She told me that they had investigated how these mistakes could have happened, and that someone had brought up me doing homework there. She claimed that she was not aware of that, even though I had mentioned it to her several times.
Before I tell you this part, I want to explain- I realize what I did here is stupid. To complete our work, each of us was provided with a laptop. I felt odd using my google account which was associated with the organization to do my homework, so I had logged into my personal Google account on my work laptop to complete my homework. I realize now I should not have done that, I didnt know any better at the time. The insane part to me, is that instead of sitting down with me and asking about the mistakes, or if I was doing homework while I was there, my boss went through the search history of my personal Google account. She had it printed out, with the times I had done homework highlighted when she sat down with me. I realize it was a company computer, but I feel violated that she went through my personal data without even asking me about the issue first. She then told me that apparently me doing homework there was time theft, and that she would need to let me go.
I guess my issue is that I feel as though there should have been some sort of conversation or warning before I was terminated. I was only doing what I had seen others do, I didn’t know it was wrong. I had completed all of my other work before I ever did anything that wasn’t company related. I also don’t understand why nobody asked me how the checks could have been so messed up before jumping straight to going through my search history. I felt violated and blindsided.
In the last few weeks I worked there, I felt very isolated from my other coworkers. Ally and my other coworker often sat in the other room without even saying hello to me, and I started to believe they didn’t want me around. I almost feel as though one of them ‘tattled’ on me for doing homework. I know of several things my other coworkers did which would’ve warranted warnings, if not termination, which I never brought up for fear of being ‘that person’. Things such as cancelling events and not contacting those who had signed up to let them know, scheduling events on top of other events and then expecting the first thing scheduled to be cancelled, etc. I never even brought up the way Ally treated me in a serious manner, as I didn’t want to get her in trouble. Now, I almost feel like I should have brought these mistakes up.
I don’t know what I meant to accomplish with this post. I know it’s long and I thank anyone who’s read this far in. I guess it was just nice to put my feelings out there. I’m sure there’s some things I left out, but I’ll definitely answer any questions in the comments if anyone has any. Either way, thanks for listening. I’d love to hear y’all’s opinions on my crazy life lol.
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