Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

Things I don't miss one damn bit about working in the nonprofit sector

Okay, at the risk of sounding like I still have sour grapes (well, maybe I do, whattya gonna do about it?), I was thinking last night about my job today in relation to my job a year ago, and this list started coming to me.

So, in no paricular order, things I don't miss one damn bit about working in the nonprofit sector:

• Coworkers who have no idea how to use their computers.
• So-called environmentalists who don't even know the basics of office recycling.
• Aged receptionists who fall asleep at the front desk.
• People making requests for design services by using such laughably antiquated terminology that it's obvious they have absolutely no clue what they're talking about.
  
• Having to be the in-house tech when it certainly wasn't my job, I wasn't being paid for it, and I had other important work to do.
• Having to use computers that make 386 machines look fast.
• Having to buy my own software and hardware just to get my job done. To the tune of hundreds of dollars a year, usually.
• Having people say thank you but never actually showing you that they meant it. You value what I do? Prove it. Pay me enough to live on.
• Board meetings.
• Constant moaning from certain individuals who dragged everyone around them into a downward spiral of inertia.
• Coworkers who don't listen or remember what you say, no matter how many times you say it.
• Tex's singing.
• Working with an overwhelming majority of people who have absolutely no concept of what you do and its value to the organization.
• Always having 190% more to do than is possible to do in the time and salary alloted for your job. In other words, working at a place that has no idea what it takes to do your job, why it's important, how complicated it is, what sort of resources it takes, etc. ad nauseum.
• Staff meetings.
• Never having a budget for your project. Ever.
• Having to raise your own salary.
• Having to do 17 different jobs.
• Having to update the EcoCalendar every week.
• Having to fix other people's mistakes, even though you've shown them how to do it right about a million times, written an extensive manual, and constantly remind them how to do it the right way.
• Working in a place where it seems any sense of fashion or aesthetic fell into a black hole sometime around 1996.
• Having to try to keep a straight face when someone uses phrases like "You're putting out a real negative energy."
• Equally, trying not to roll my eyes when we sponsored events like sunrise ceremonies.
• The PCC building. Which is an ugly concrete hunk of shit.

Posted by espd at 7:21 AM | 
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