I know I rarely post here. I just need a safe place to write where the people who care can read, but the world at large can't see. Fair warning, lots of swearing... I typically don't swear this much in person, but I am pissed.

So tomorrow is my last day at the non-profit community theatre where I have worked for the past 7 months as the marketing and development director. I had the option of being fired or resigning. I chose to resign (even though that would remove my chance for unemployment) because it looks better on paper. I have too little experience in the field where I want to work to have a black mark on the experience I do have. It's... Yeah. It's fucked up. /understatement.

Let me also just write that there's a whole different side to the theatre and non-profits that I didn't know existed before this job. I would be interested to talking to other females who work for non-profits to see what sort of sexual harassment from donors/patrons they experience.

Not joking.

I am pretty fucking frustrated about losing this job, as shitty as it turned out to be. I need money to pay bills! I am now frantically looking for something to tide me over financially because tomorrow is my last paycheck from this job. I sent in my taxes on Tuesday and I am hoping the paycheck from my freelance work comes in soon. I thought I had until the end of May to find a different job, but no. Surprise. End of March. Shit.

My boss is a bully. Not a "I'm going to boss you around" intimidating-type bully, but a "I'm going to befriend and get you to tell me information about your coworkers and then RAIN SHIT DOWN ON YOU WHEN YOU START GETTING WISE TO MY TACTICS" type of bully. Have you read/seen the 5th Harry Potter movie? My soon to be former boss is a pretty good representation of Professor Umbridge. A wall of her office is even painted bubblegum pink. (Hence the title of this journal.)

From insinuating that I mislead her in my initial interview back in August to giving me a formal reprimand claiming I falsified a timesheet (even though my job is fucking SALARIED and I have not and WOULD NOT falsify a timesheet! I've been working since I was 14 years old!) The way this position has turned is a load of bullshit. My boss is "spring cleaning," and I would not be surprised if it were to cover up some financial loss/error made on HER part. There is no way this non-profit can sustain her salary. I know when she was hired last year it was with the understanding that she would bring in her salary in grant money, because supposedly she was an excellent grant writer.

The thing is, none of the staff know if that has been made. We've heard nothing about whether or not the theatre has been awarded grants or not. We do know that we have been put under a "spending freeze" and any requests for purchases need to be made directly through her. Great, right?

When I applied and interviewed for this job I made it no secret that I had no experience in marketing or development. What I did have was raw talent and the ability to learn. I was very surprised that I was offered the position, and I accepted with the understanding that I would be TAUGHT how to do the tasks my new job required.

Nope. None of that happened.

I had two days to organize my office, sort my files, meet people and sign the paperwork. Then I was given a stack of folders and told that I needed to start getting advertisers to renew their ads in the program. I had one example letter, but nothing else.

Google and I started becoming very good friends.

Fast forward to more recent times.

In February, when I received that super-stupid reprimand, I was also put on three months of "probation." What does that mean, you ask? I still don't have a fucking clue. There's NOTHING in the staff handbook about it. I was told that it was a chance for me to "prove my worth and value to the company." Bullshit. It was setting me up to be removed. The timing of the probationary period conveniently coincided with a goal given to me a month before shit went down that my boss would like to have funders for all of next year's shows by the end of May.

So, incase all of that was hard to follow, I was expected to drum up almost $50,000 in three months by courting and soliciting area businesses. If I didn't, well, then I would lose my job.

Obviously, I didn't make it to May.

Fuck this job. This is so messed up.

I did my best, without any help from the marketing committee, board members, or my boss. I taught myself spiels to sell ad space that worked through trial and error. i taught myself how to sell the benefits of getting involved in the theatre. The social media presence increased and strengthened. I also brought in 6 new advertisers in addition to all the ads that I renewed.

Doesn't matter.

Also, the guy who had my job before was not ONLY suspected of cookin' the books, but he took half of the files WITH HIM when he rage-quitted last year. So I've been doing this job with gaping holes in the available information! I have called businesses to renew their advertisement and have been told that the person I had been trying to reach had DIED.

THAT'S how messed up/out-of-date some of these files are. It's 52-card pick-up.

So the "plan" of my soon-to-be-former place of employment, since I will no longer be working after tomorrow, is to take my position and

1. Remove the "marketing" aspect of it
2. Make it part-time
3. Have it be strictly development.

A part-time grant-writng/funding position. Sounds like a recipe for success, no? /sarcasm.

It took me 4 months to get $1000 from a business and I called them at LEAST once every two weeks. It took another 3 months to get a combined $750 from TWO different businesses and I spent a lot of my own gas money going back and forth trying to get them to commit to the involvement. No reimbursement for gas. And they want almost $50,000 in three months?

Not to mention the 30 other businesses I have been trying to contact to start/renew a sponsor/donation relationship with! Something my boss doesn't seem to understand is that I can only do so much when:

1. All I get is sent to voicemail when I call
2. They are in a "meeting"/meeting whenever I stop in
3. They don't respond to any follow-up emails
4. I don't get reimbursed for gas

I don't know what planet they are from, but I don't think they realize how impossible their own expectations are.

The other thing is that I know all the full-time staff expressed valid concerns in their annual staff review of our boss.... And the president of the board came to our staff meeting after the submissions were due, told us he didn't want to hear us bitch and complain and commended our boss for her hard work and dedication to the theatre. *deep breaths deep breaths* I feel the views we expressed in our reviews were honest and fair. The fact that they were tossed aside and dismissed is infuriating. It was a cry for help and it was ignored.

Part of me is glad that I don't have to deal with the shit that this job has begun to entail. I don't have to worry about raising ridiculous amounts of money. I don't have to worry about getting panic attacks from checking my email. I don't have to worry about documenting all the shit because I'll be done. I'll be done with this fucking stupid job.

My boss is supreme micromanaging idiot who doesn't know how to properly manage people. She has actively worked to pit employees against each other to her own gain and has tried to discourage us from comparing stories.

I am mad. I kind of feel cheated out of a job that I worked hard to get and a job that I thought was for a worthy cause. I feel cheated out of the good work that I did do for this job. It's not like I was half-assing anything. When I care about something, I work really hard to do well. But even that has it's limits. I feel cheated out of the pay-cut I took switching from being a 4th year teacher to working for a non-profit.

Looking back, I can see that I was set up for failure. The fact that it's been blamed on ME for my "failures" is making me want to explode with anger and frustration.

Especially the whole "probation thing." The fact that my boss went "you are totally sucking at your job, but we're gonna give you a 'trial period' of three months to try and let you get your act together and do your job" to "sorry, we're going to have to let you go. Like... now, except next Friday because it'll conveniently line up with the end of a pay period. You suck too much, we're in too much debt to keep you until May, so bye. Next week." In less than a month is awful. AWFUL. It's total, fucking, bullshit.

I want a new full-time job that will pay my bills so I can furiously hate this job without the fear and uncertainty that is eating away at me. I hate my boss for what she's done to me, my coworkers and the place where I work.

And I am not going to donate to this organization and I am not going to encourage anyone else to either. I can't promise you how the money will be put to use. There are better places that deserve your money.

So, yeah.... Suddenly I find myself unemployed. Tomorrow's paycheck will cover my bills until April 15th. (That's when the next paycheck would have come.) Many thanks to  hatathi for listening to me rant and rave and cry about this whole fucked up situation and talking to his hiring manager at the grocery store on my behalf. I hope they will give me a call soon - I don't want to have to start waiting tables again. If I have to, I will, but it sucks.

There are a couple marketing/writing jobs open that I have applied for - so I'm keeping everything crossed that something works out. I want to be able to feed my cat Watson and pay bills. Eating would be nice too. All that stuff. I used up my savings to move to be closer to this job and hadn't been able to replenish anything yet.

Soooooo that's awesome. /again, sarcasm

I'm not even going to be able to think about marriage plans because that just makes me even more upset.

Fuck you job. Fuck you, stupid boss. You don't deserve the amazing people who are still working for you.