It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
Remember the letter-writer whose boss was pushing them to fundraise from their family and friends and tap their personal network for prizes for raffles? Here’s the update.
In the months during which my boss was pressuring me to solicit gifts, I managed to procure exactly one in-kind gift from a local business I frequent, and I was so awkward doing it. There’s a local yarn shop that I frequent, so I intended to ask the owner for a donation for an upcoming fundraising auction. On the day I’d psyched myself up to make the request (as noted in my original letter, this kind of thing is NOT my bailiwick), I went into the shop, had a nice, long conversation about my current knitting project with the very nice woman who owns the place, then totally chickened out when a crafting group arrived and she got busy dealing with multiple other people. I ended up finding her email address on the shop website later and just emailed her the request. As stated, she is completely lovely so she overlooked my cringeworthy solicitation attempt and happily agreed to donate an item for the auction.
Despite my (admittedly minor) success, my boss still wasn’t happy. He didn’t like the gift she donated — a hand-knitted item, very beautifully done. I thought she was being very thoughtful by donating a finished product rather than just straight-up yarn or supplies, as it should have broader appeal beyond just knitters. My boss thought it was something no one would want or bid on. (Many of the other auction items were similarly small items, like a tote bag or gift card, so it wasn’t an issue where it needed to be something worth thousands.)
So after this, I just started lying. I told him I’d made the requests of my friends with small businesses and they declined. I think this was not just the “easier” way, but really the only way, because if I’d tried to stand on principle he would’ve argued with me.
Over the time I worked there, I got the feeling that he cared a lot more about potential contacts that employees might have vs. actual professional skills, and he was disappointed that my address didn’t mean I had a cache of wealthy friends to exploit. (I live in a tourist town that has a really high wealth disparity — very wealthy summer people, and then the year-round residents who work mostly blue-collar jobs. He was dismayed that my circle of contacts and I were in the latter camp. I actually do remember him making kind of a big deal about the town where I lived during my interview. Hindsight and all that.)
I did end up quitting, about two weeks after I sent in my original letter. The problem I outlined in my original letter was a very, very minor part of the reason. Actually, the reason I chose that problem to submit was because for most of the others, I pretty much knew your answer would just be “get out.” I should’ve listened to tiny Alison in my head sooner!
My boss was actually set to be going on vacation about two weeks after I made up my mind to resign, so I — very kindly, I thought — offered to extend my notice to a month, to provide coverage during the time he’d be gone. I thought I’d get an extra two weeks’ paycheck and not have to deal with him at all, because he’d be on vacation. (And to be clear: I actually really liked my job itself, as in my actual job duties. It was him that was the problem.) This turned out to be a mistake because after accepting my offer — in which I made it clear that I was extending my notice because he’d be away — he pushed back his departure date and rushed to hire someone to replace me, so my last two weeks were spent (1) still dealing with his bullshit and (2) trying to infodump my entire brain into the unqualified new hire, because that’s what my boss thought “training” was.
I was validated in my initial reluctance to solicit gifts from businesses and friends when I went back to the yarn shop recently and the owner asked how the organization was doing. (Just FYI, she received a prompt thank-you card for the donation! This was months later.) I had to awkwardly explain that I no longer worked there, and it was kind of uncomfortable because I was trying not to disparage the organization (and hence make her regret her donation), but people do wonder about it when you just quit with no backup plan. I babbled something about it not being the right fit for me. Hopefully it won’t come up again.
The pièce de résistance of this story is that the new hire I trained to replace me quit two weeks after I left. And a woman who started shortly before I put in my notice quit as well, after about four months total. I lasted eight months. I think both of them were smarter than me.
The post update: am I obligated to use my personal network for my job? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
