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?

I have never heard of anything so disorganised in my life. Completely mad!

I think you may have my old job…

is there a current safeguarding issue they are trying to bury?

My DH can't see an issue. He says 'at least you get to work from home' and 'but you aren't doing anything on your days off anyway'. Which pisses me off at him because I might be free on my non working days but they aren't paying me to work more than 3 days a week so shouldn't be requiring it!

Anyway, I ended up getting a second phone, but there were serious issues with everything from safeguarding to GDPR to SAR etc.

make sure you keep records, so glad I did .

@MyOpenGoldKoala I don't think anything we do is safeguarding related, we are mainly trying to campaign / influence politicians, not working with vulnerable people directly. I'm not sure why I would need to keep records or even what records to keep?

2 thoughts:

If the contact details are published on websites and given out very widely to journalist already and on business cards (email addresses and phone numbers) then then I don't think GDPR counts it as sensitive info... the contact info is already in public domain.

Since you're using personal equipment, FGS get whatsApp working on a desktop or laptop (web.whatsApp whatever it's called); this will be vastly easier than managing the convos on phone.

Thought 3: are you sure you can't mute your tag some of the time? I feel sure WhatsApp has utilities to do that.

I'd leave. Life is too short

It sounds awful OP. But understandable you can’t just leave and that your hands are largely tied re effecting meaningful change. What you can do is draw your own lines. I would get a new phone (which you may need to use as your personal phone as the chances are they won’t manage to update your number now or they will just keep using both ).

Message them all to say your phone is now a work-only phone and therefore it will only be switched on during your working hours.

remind them of said working hours.

take the opportunity to remind them of your pre-booked leave.

do not entertain any discussion of you making up time for your leave. Rinse and repeat - “I’m taking annual leave as per agreement when I started and as per my contract. Here are the arrangements for cover / key areas that may come up while I’m away etc.”

with all the groups and cross-chat, play them at their own game. A wants you to do something, B says something else, create a new group with them both in it, set out what they say to you and ask them what they want.

any task that comes up, ask them who among them will sign it off. Don’t do any work on it until you have that name then create a new group that person, name it xyz task, and liaise with them via the new group. If someone else objects once work is done, refer them back to sign-offf person.

I get this may not work because you are dealing with batshittery and nonsense but don’t be afraid to start playing them at their own game while you look for another role. Good luck!

thank you, who knows what this week ahead will bring. Just need to survive it.

I've also put forward a suggestion this morning that would make everything so much less hassle but the tech adverse team shut it down like they do everything.

I also had someone implying it's my fault some reports are not 'perfect' before they are shared more widely - even though I check things 100 times, person A says its good to go, then only after its sent, does person B say its not perfect.

Their wording basically said "its the author's responsibility...." ie mine.

But on a positive note, applied for 3 jobs today before 9am!

well done on the job apps!

I would forward any comms where A signed something off to B, copying in A and say “A signed this off. If B needs also to sign things off, please let me know.”

Stick to short sentences, factual and very to the point. Then refer back next time. “Thanks for sign off A, B please confirm you are also content.” Or “thanks A, cc’ing B for info but will now send as have A’s sign off”

it’s a right ballache i know but don’t let them undermine you by their chronic failure to communicate. Send their words back to them every time as you confirm your actions. They will of course then blame you for lack of autonomy or dithering or anything equally unfair but keep creating an audit trail of their decisions.

For our team away day, the accomodation options offered are to share a room and bathroom with several other ladies or camp in a field. Neither option interests me, I don't like sharing with strangers or muddy fields, plus its literally the other side of the country for me. its remote apart from the away day but the agenda are all stuff we can do online as well.

I wouldn't attend the away day. It sounds like hell. Use the day to continue to job hunt. Good luck!

Definitely decline the away day. Don’t give reasons, just say you can’t make it but can support remotely.

Oh fuck that. Have a hospital appointment that day that can't be cancelled

They need to look into Slack Channels to cover all those chats. Screw the away day, job hunt like crazy and report their asses re. GDPR when you go!

I did have a job that was somewhat similar and it was a flipping nightmare, although the job title was quite good on my CV. I lasted a couple of years and only due to:

Throwing down very strong boundaries about usage of tech from the outset. I refused to give any of them my personal number and insisted on a work phone. Even then the WhatsApp chats on the work phone became chaotic and far too much.

The organisation did have a decent tech setup using Google Drive. I put my foot down and made them all use official email addresses, as otherwise there were constant complaints about not being able to access things on said Drive. This also cut down pointless email traffic.

Talking a lot about 'professionalising' the organisation.

Simultaneously adding a lot of value while maintaining said boundaries.

Question: If you are thinking of leaving anyway, why are you afraid to put your foot down?

Put a 'statement' on the largest WhatsApp group and say that you can no longer continue working in this chaotic and unprofessional fashion or you will leave. You need to be made admin of any groups connected to the organisation within 24 hours and you will be merging and deleting groups where necessary. Leave any group where you are not made admin.

Set up an email address and only respond to and from it.

Set up a 'policy/document' email group and only this group finalises documents.

Be strong - you do have some power!

Today I realised I haven't had any probation sign off yet.
We all share the same gmail / google account too, and its really messy.
I can't send strongly worded messages, I'm trying to stay as professional as I can before I can leave, I don't want to make things more difficult.

You can be very firm and very polite at the same time. It is essential for your self respect to put up some boundaries.

If not now, in a job that you no longer care about, then when? Your future self will thank you for it.

Completely mentally disengage and leave. Max out your leave and benefits and quiet quit. Don't put effort it or worry about completing work on time.

All organisations have issues but I think the mix of unpaid and paid staff can be a special type of hell.

They can end up as hotspots for fairly "difficult", intense personalities who aren't really wanted elsewhere and have too much time on their hands.

I temped one day a week for a charity and although it was a cool job overall and the CEO was professional, there were definitely some incredibly "intense" volunteers with poor social skills.

They wanted the social kudos of saying they were associated with X organisation, but honestly they simply weren't employable.

I actually cried this afternoon, I'm desperate to leave but there's so few jobs out there, I'm actively looking though. Sorry to keep posting on here but its anonymous and kind of therapeutic to just put it all down.

This is mental! Practically speaking can you get an AI to scrape the chats and identify all the actions rather than yoy scrolling ? Then you can mute it all!

Agree to this. They are already having a go at you now so what's the incentive to care?

You can mute tags in WhatsApp too – Google it but I think it’s somewhere in the notification settings.

I’d also quite quit. Their disorganisation isn’t your problem. They will keep losing good staff if they don’t fix things. If anyone complains about work not getting done I’d refer them to the millions of messages you need to wade through during your contracted hours. They need to prioritise improved comms if they want you to prioritise your actual workload.

Likewise ignore them about making up hours for pre-agreed leave, that’s ridiculous. “I won’t be available for xx as I’m on leave as approved by x”. Rinse and repeat.

I’ve just checked and it’s not very intuitive so in case it’s helpful: mute the group, then search for it, click on the group name at the top, click notifications, then you can toggle on “mute @allmentions”. So at least now you can properly ignore them when you’re not working!