Remember the letter-writer in May who was being hassled by a fellow volunteer to do more volunteering, despite the fact that she had made it clear she was on medical leave? Here’s the update.
I stepped down from the leadership of the organization, but I’m still technically a member. I made the decision recently to leave the organization entirely because of what happened after stepping down.
When I stepped down, the person I originally wrote in about immediately went out and asked a friend to replace me, and then asked me to provide support and encouragement to her. I agreed, and made some friendly comments of “You’re doing great! Better than I could!” to my replacement. I also removed myself as admin from all social media, and pulled out of their group chats, and to give myself more distance, I pulled out of the Facebook discussion group for members.
About two months after I left, my replacement went on vacation. My pushy colleague then voluntold me that I would be taking over in her absence (about a month) and doing my old job managing social media following my replacements schedule. I tried politely declining, explaining that I no longer had the access required to do the job.
So she restored my access and told me I could do it now. I took myself off again, and this time I told her that I also didn’t have the time to do it. This started an aggravating series of events where I would agree to participate in one way, then when I showed up I would be assigned a completely different role, usually one requiring more effort and work than I had originally agreed to; or I would get an additional role that I hadn’t agreed to. I stopped responding to her on social media and messenger; she escalated to actually calling me. Then when I took some time away from volunteering to spend time with my husband because he took time off from his actual job; she would send mutual friends to reach out to me, asking about my health, and then following up with a request to come back and volunteer. Following us hosting a big event for the city, she tried to take my pay and spend it on the organization. I ended up blocking her entirely after she abused her admin privileges to repeatedly add me back into groups and group chats I would remove myself from – as in, I would remove myself from the group, and by the next week she would just add me back.
What started out as a fun way to hang out with my friends and meet new people has become uncomfortable and stressful. I dread going to meetings and I’m just going to quit altogether and focus on other things. However, the social circle is quite small where we live, to the point where she joined an organization for people of my heritage (Hispanic ) to meet – she is not Hispanic, she is white and native to the country we live in – so now I feel cut off from my culture. She even took over organizing part of our Día de los Muertos celebration, so I declined attending and kept my daughter away from (she once tried to drive off in my car with my daughter in it, so I don’t trust her to be alone with my child).
On a semi-positive note, I got accepted into a masters program in a field of study that I’m very interested in. It’s been rewarding and very challenging but I’m glad to start making connections. However, she became the head of one of the major organizations in the field in town, so I’m looking at other options outside of where I live. But studying keeps me busy (one of the other reasons I had to block her was that she kept messaging me and calling me during midterms).
For now I’m focused on what’s in front of me. I don’t know what will happen next and it’s unavoidable that we will run I to each other again; but we’ll see. I’m positive that I can find something, because I always do!
update: my contact won’t stop pressuring me to volunteer while I’m on medical leave was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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