More workplace malfeasance

After yesterday's post about my former workplace shenanigans, my friend J reminded me of another Workplace From Hell. This one was long, long ago in a city far, far away, but yielded plenty of other horror stories.

Without naming names, this is when I lived in a city that started with an L and worked in a nonprofit capacity. Last week, I learned that the CEO of this nonprofit was finally being forced out, after 30 years, for public bad behavior (and a history of being an asshole.) I was only surprised that it had taken them 30 years to force him out. I could have told them 15 years ago he was an asshole.

Anyway. That was a messed-up time in my life, and it was my first professional job. My screwy personal life affected my work more than it should have, but I was also too young and naive to realize the depths of the politicking and assholery at that place. I thought all workplaces were like that.

Now, the key word in "nonprofit" is "no profit." I was making a lousy $21,000 a year, trying to raise money for chronically underfunded artistic organizations from low-paid blue-collar workers. I made pitches at 5 am to third-shift cops and factory workers, people who were making less money than I was, asking for them to please give something, anything so that their kids could get free field trips to art museums and theater matinees. What money they did give was hard-fought and hard-won, and I begrudged them none of it.

Meanwhile, the executives at this nonprofit drove Porsches and Mercedes-Benz convertibles.

It is true--to a certain extent--than in order to make money, you have to spend money. I understand that in order to schmooze a million-dollar donation from Mr. Bank President, you need to wear a nice suit to the sales pitch, and it doesn't hurt if you already go to the same country club. However. When third-shift factory workers making $8 an hour stood up in the middle of my sales pitch and said, "Why should I give $5 a week to you when [name redacted] drives a Porsche?", I had no answer for them.

(I did tell them to make sure to write on their donation that it should be earmarked for a particular group, and that way it couldn't be used for administrative costs.)

Mr. Porsche, at that point, made more than 10 times what I did. Now, to give him the benefit of the doubt, his was not an easy job. No one ever sees the value in funding arts organizations, and corporations would much rather earn community goodwill by giving money to children's hospitals or cancer research than to the opera. He managed to increase donations every year, by hook or by crook, though I don't like to imagine what went on behind closed doors. And hey, if my salary was that high, I'd be tempted to buy an expensive, high-powered sports car as well.

But not if I worked at a NONPROFIT.

He also liked to imagine that he wielded supreme executive power over the presidents of the various organizations we funded, that if it weren't for him, they would all go bankrupt overnight. He liked to yell at them, to strut during the meetings, to throw what little weight he possessed around like a blunt object, to style himself Lord Of All Fundraising.

Small Penis Syndrome, for sure.

It goes without saying that our administrative costs were higher than they should have been.

Because he was the CEO and I was the lowly whatever-my-title-was-at-the-time, we didn't have a lot of direct interaction. There was one instance when I was driving back from a weekend away, visiting friends, and got caught in a freak snowstorm. I had to get a hotel room for the night, off the interstate, and wait it out. This was a Sunday night. I called work, let them know I would be in late Monday morning, explained the circumstances, and then got to work on Monday morning as quickly as I could.

He waited until Friday, then left a message on my voice mail (hello, passive-aggressive?) explaining that he would let it slide this one time, but in future I was to make sure I did not get caught in any more snowstorms and would make it to work on time on Monday mornings. Being late due to snowstorms was unacceptable.

Did I mention I'd been making 5 am pitches to shift workers?

Did I mention that was the only time, the whole time I worked there, that I was ever late?

When I announced that I'd been accepted into graduate school, that I'd be leaving to move to New York that coming August, he sent a vice-president to inform me that since I was leaving anyway, I could just go ahead and leave right then and save them paying me through August.

When I protested, he told me--through the vice-president--that he had a "policy" of not keeping people on who wouldn't be there for the entire next fundraising season.

Then he said I hadn't worked there long enough to qualify for either severance or unemployment.

I'd been working there two years.

The next week, he bought a very expensive vintage poster to adorn his office. The cost of the poster would have easily paid my salary through August.

In tomorrow's edition of Workplaces From Hell: my boss calls me a dike! In front of the whole bar!