AIBU to think 48 WhatsApp groups for a part-time job is a circus?

[motheronthedancefloor]

Hi everyone, I’m after some advice and maybe just some shared experiences from anyone who’s survived a workplace like this.

I’m in my mid-40s and I’m about three months into a part-time role for a small grassroots advocacy organisation. The people are okay as individuals, but the setup is a total nightmare. It’s essentially run by a working group of volunteers in their 70s and 80s who are very new to having employees, and it really shows. It’s a classic case of "Founder’s Syndrome"—they’ve hired me for my expertise, but they can’t seem to let go and I often feel like I'm being treated like a child.

The main thing is the digital noise. There is no work laptop, no work phone, and not even a work email address. Everything is done via personal emails and WhatsApp. I am currently in 48 different WhatsApp groups and work chats. Forty-eight! I'm expected to check them regularly for tasks/suggestions/ideas, including scrolling back which, as you can imagine, is quite a volume.

It’s all on my personal phone, and even when I mute the chats on days off, I’m constantly being @tagged, so the notifications cut through anyway. Because it’s my personal mobile, I can’t ever actually switch off. It feels like a full-time mental load for part-time hours. I have told them I have had big family events this month and even marked it in the shared calendar - only to get pinged on the day.

I don't have a single manager, so they all give me conflicting instructions and it drives me totally barmy. I’ll spend an entire day on a task, Person X will tell me it’s fine, then Person Y will come along the next day and tell me to change the whole thing. I can go through multiple edits for the same piece of work just to satisfy different personal preferences. It’s constant micromanagement—I have to get approval for the tiniest things, and then they often just redo it anyway because it’s not exactly how they would have phrased it.

I’ve voiced my concerns, but nothing changes. I just get apologies and then the same patterns repeat. There are also massive red flags regarding GDPR. Because I'm using my own kit, I have the personal numbers and emails of very senior politicians, journalists, lawyers, and celebrities on my own phone, along with passwords for all their systems. I’d never share them, obviously, but I feel incredibly uncomfortable with the lack of security. I’ve highlighted this to them, but it’s fallen on deaf ears.

There’s one other employee who is just as frustrated as me, but she’s full-time, better paid, and has been in politics much longer. This is my first political/advocacy role, so I wasn't sure if this was "normal"—but it feels incredibly dysfunctional.

Even getting the job was weird. They weren't happy with standard professional references and insisted on five or six different people, including personal ones. It felt totally over the top and very intrusive. To top it off, I have a disability and have a pre-disclosed block of leave coming up. They’re now stalling on how to record it and suggesting I "make up the hours" on evenings and weekends, which is making me incredibly anxious.

I’m already looking for other jobs, but the market is a total bin fire at the moment. There are so few jobs out there and hundreds of people going for the samae jobs. I can't afford to just walk away with nothing. AIBU to feel this way? Has anyone else experienced something like this?

fuck that

It sounds bonkers. I would refuse to use my own equipment that's a given, and the rest, well that's on you

Have they provided you with a work phone?

You should not be in any groups on your personal phone.

You need the organisation to provide a work phone.

Are you paid at a senior enough level to deal with that kind of chaos? It sounds like they're wasting a lot of your paid time and energy through inefficient communication and lack of direction.

fuck that shit

Never mind a work phone, that would be bombarded as well and although you can turn that off after work, you’re still going to be hassled for most of the day.

It sounds absurd and I’d have to look for another job altogether. It would drive me insane. Tell the boss that the way they operate isn’t right for you and get out of there.

Sounds like a nightmare. Leave.

Reading the rest of your post was worrying they expect you to make up time at weekends evenings re your pre disclosed lease?! Wtaf?

I’ve worked in a similar environment. Like you I tried politely explaining or suggesting better ways of working etc. I left in the end and do similar work for a larger organisation. The problem when you’re managed by volunteers is that they think everyone should want to do it for the love of whatever the cause is. Realistically, however invested you are (and I really was) in the aims of the charity, it’s not a hobby, it’s a job. You don’t want to be on 24/7 call.

Find a new job.

Oh god it sounds awful! DH had a job that sounds very similar (if it wasn't for the fact that his wasn't in politics, i'd think it was the same company!) and he stuck with it for a year, but then it all got too much and he ended up having an argument with one of the managing directors, and within a few hours he was called into a meeting, sacked with immediate effect, escorted back to his desk to collect his things and escorted out of the building. It was mental! My DH is the calmest, most non confrontational person, so the argument will have been no more than a slightly heated honest discussion that they couldn't handle. He's also a specialist in his field, and they brought him in because they acknowledged that they had no idea about what they were doing, yet didn't listen to a word he said! Fortunately he had actually received a job offer a few days before and he was just waiting for references to be checked before he handed in his notice, so it was fine, but god knows what we'd have done otherwise because you're right, the job market is a total shitshow right now.

Sorry, this isn't helpful, but just sending you solidarity and strength because it's awful working somewhere like that.

@Drdogooder you're bang on in your post.

To other posters, I'm trying to find something else, believe me, but no luck as yet.

I earn £41,000 FTE (currently 0.6 part time). I'd prefer to work full time but they have 'no budget', despite full time expectations.

When I try to raise my concerns, I get told that's the nature of political work, so I feel a bit dumb, is it just me unfamiliar with that way of working?

Its a political advocacy group.

This is not the nature of political/advocacy work no.

I'd look for another job

Could ACAS help? I'd refuse to use my own phone, if they can't afford to resource staff, they can't afford the staff. They'll have included a percentage on top of salary for on-costs in any funding bids.

Not my area of expertise but surely they're also breaking the law expecting you to make up hours for annual leave and their GDPR sounds really shaky.

That is not the nature of any political, advocacy or NGO sector work I have ever come across in my entire career.

Resign and state the reasons why.
Find a lower paid job while you’re looking for something else to tide you over.
The job clearly unsustainable.

Yeah, nope to that shit. I’ve never been in a single work WhatsApp group ever. The only time I even use WhatsApp for work is sometimes I have to send someone a one time password to access a secure database. I can send the link via email, but the password has to be sent end to end encrypted, which email isn’t but WhatsApp apparently is. 🤷🏻‍♀️

That said, this does sum up our communication with MIL. 😂 She creates a new WhatsApp group for every new topic. Some cousin has had a baby - new WhatsApp group for all of us. She has even started doing it with friends. Wants to tell all her friends in the village about some new recycling initiative (and apparently me, who lives hours away, but not Dh who seems to escape the group chats), creates a new WhatsApp group, adds Paul and Betty and Donna from church and me and sends us all the link. 🤣 Why?! Why does she do this? It’s really awkward, but I’m too polite to leave the group. 🫣

At £41k you should have the authority to organise a work phone and tech and bill them. I guess part of the problem is that there isn't the structure to permit this but perhaps you could cast yourself more firmly in the role of organiser and facilitator, part of whose role is to ensure the structure and chain of command is streamlined so that the organisation can function well. Get ahead of them, so you are leading rather than just reacting. You're not a servant, you are there to bring your professional expertise. Frame it that you are there to add value and help the whole organisation to be more effective. Remind them what the actual objective of the organisation is - you are there to help deliver that better, not to make them all feel listened to.

You absolutely need a work phone and a much more trimmed down group structure. They need to learn to post in bigger groups and filter out bits that aren't relevant to them. You don't have time to manage this much he said she said.

Easier for me to say than for anyone to pull off though.

In my experience, whilst this is totally reasonable and rational advice, it would be received very poorly because said founding volunteers have a whole bunch of self esteem and identity wrapped up in being in charge. Fundamentally OP won’t be able to fix this.

What can OP do about that though? Informing the data commissioner doesn’t help her problems.

the only thing I do wonder though OP is you seem to be at very low risk of being sacked- why not do what you want, play them off against each other when challenged and try and take back control? They aren’t actually be able to mange you, you could view this as autonomy and a chance to take control.

They need Microsoft teams.

At least you can have that on your personal phone without it interrupting personl life.

I work in a similar organisation and this is not normal.

They should have a board of trustees who are your employers. You need to raise the issues with them and, if I were you, I would go with a suggestion of how this can be improved. They should be. eligible for free Microsoft 365, for example, which can give everyone dedicated email addresses, Teams account, etc. If they were to get an SAR, the current set up means everyone submitting all the data on their personal phones. If you are expected to use a phone for work, they should be covering the costs of that, and I would personally get a separate one for my own use out of office hours. Their current method of working makes them incredibly vulnerable to complaints.

A wise boss once told me that if you are unhappy at work you either change the people or you change the people.

Which one can you achieve?

@fairydust11 I can't afford to just quit, and being disabled, its a bit harder to find another job straight away, I'm not the most attractive candidate on paper.

@Drdogooder once again, you clearly get what I'm talking about! They won't change, I've already tried politely voicing my frustrations to no avail.

@bridgetreilly all good suggestions, but I doubt they'd take them seriously. Everything I suggest seems to be 'too hard', 'too complex', 'too timeconsuming'.

@Itsmetheflamingo I agree, I don't think I'll get sacked, but I definitely need to leave on good terms. Its increasingly hard to bite my tongue though.

@singthing I need to change the job!

I had similar in a charity role. Trustees were all 60-70 and hugely hands on in everything. But terrible at communicating with each other. I had a theoretical manager but they were constantly ignored or overridden. There was no process for any form of sensible data management. I did have a laptop but had to use my personal phone and had calls/WhatsApp/texts any time including holidays. I'd never work in that line of work again as it was hugely stressful.