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?