Here are three updates from past letter-writers.
1. We got a complaint call about a new hire before she started
Thanks so much for the reassurance that we’ve done our due diligence on the ED hire.
Our board president and I had a Zoom call with the new ED and let them know of the call we had received. The new ED was dismayed, but not surprised (and appreciative that we were having the conversation). The new ED explained the history of this woman’s tenure and behavior, and it ultimately sounds like unfortunately there are some very serious unaddressed health problems at play.
Just to check a final box in case we need to defend ourselves, I called the president of the board of the other organization, and she confirmed everything our new ED said, including some other additional details: the org hired an outside law firm to investigate everything, which found no merit to the claims; when this caller was terminated, she asked for help from the union and the union declined; and she filed an EEOC complaint, which was dismissed.
We’re hopeful that this woman goes away now and we never have to deal with her again, but if she doesn’t, we’re fully prepared to send a cease and desist, file defamation suits, or anything else that is applicable.
2. Can I do anything about a senior-level colleague who doesn’t do any work?
I have an update on this already! Andy told Jane that I was not to make any more updates in our system unless Andy knows about them first. This is in response to a couple of changes I rolled out at staff meeting that were requested by other departments.
Andy is not our manager and is not in charge of the system nor the updates I make in it. Nor should Andy be dictating what changes I do or do not make on request of other departments. My manager, Jane, is adamant about this.
Jane called me, furious that Andy has made this pronouncement. Then, just for fun, we looked in the system to see what tasks Andy has been recording (nothing since last Nov, in case you’re wondering) and noticed that Andy received two emails from both members of a couple asking us to cancel their monthly donation. One was received in mid-Jan and the other last week. SOP is for Andy to forward me these requests and I have heard nothing about them.
I did not get into this in my letter because it was too long already, but in early Feb Andy said they’d received an email from a monthly donor asking to lower the amount of their donation. The saddest thing, though, was that another staff member had informed me just the day before that the donor had passed away the previous week. Turns out, Andy had gotten the email from the donor three weeks prior and had sat on it all that time.
I’m probably way too hung up on this on a personal level so I’m going to just put my head down for now and get my work done. Thanks again!
3. Can I put a job I haven’t started yet on my resume? (#5 at the link)
I got a job! Not the job I was applying for in my original question, but one that is directly in my field, in the intersection of subjects (political data) I’ve been studying my entire college career. I know that there are no dream jobs, but it’s in the field I want, using skills I enjoy, doing work that I’m really excited about.
I just wanted to send a huge thank you to you and your site for all of the advice. It is because of your site that I applied to a job that I wasn’t 100% qualified for, wrote a pretty good cover letter that got me an interview invite even though they already had other candidates at the final stage, and managed to get a salary I’m happy about!
