Chaotic charity, incompetent colleagues

[Startingagainandagain]

I work for a charity and the level of general chaos and disorganisation is unbelievable.

There is a high staff turnover, half of the stuff in the office never works (shitty wifi, old building that always has maintenance issues), a lot of office politics, endless meetings, and everything takes forever to do because of the disorganisation or has to be done over and over again so it feels like nothing is ever achieved and even the simplest things become complicated.

I am also finding that some of the staff try to get around the processes that are in place when asking for support from my team (basically they can't be bothered to fill in a simple form put in place to streamline the process and cut down on meetings).

I wonder how people would advise to deal with this while I look for a new job.

My manager is the type who wants to be nice to everyone so makes supportive noises but always stays on the fence so nothing changes. That person has been there for a few years and there has been a high turnover in my role so I think that is a sign that nothing will realistically improve which is why I am job hunting.

Should I just grey rock, focus on my job search and keep standing my ground when it comes to expecting people to follow procedures?

Any other tips, especially from people who have worked in the voluntary sector, would be most welcome.

I have worked for several charities and I have never seen anything like this.

I work part-time and this is making things even more stressful because so much of my time is wasted on all this chaos rather than doing my actual job.

Do you have HR dept?
the manager is to blame for letting stuff get so bad - she’s not there to be nice and be friendly
get yourself on charity job and find something else asap

Are they well funded?

Grey rock. When you disinvest from the situation it becomes much easier.

At the moment, you are about what’s happening, about helping people and improving things. That’s utterly pointless in the context you have, so become a ‘computer says no’ person.

Push back in a bland, distracted fashion.
Have you sent the booking form? Ok, let me know when you do.
Is it in the diary? Ok, we’ll give me a nudge when you’ve done that bit and so I can do my side.
That’s odd, it’s not in my diary and I can’t see an email about it.

When you care less, you can be much more productive. (Note to self).

Can you talk to your Trustees? Although with my experience of Trustees that's probably a daft suggestion.

God this is so familiar. I'm currently working ina charity as a consultant trying to fix exactly this set of problems. It's hard because they just don't fund investing in getting proper systems in place and staff turnover just means that things don't get embedded.

Nothing to suggest other than once you have left for another job, report them to the Charities Commission.

Thank you everyone for the comments! I really appreciate it and it made me feel a lot better to read this.

The Trustees are not really going to help. They know that there is a now long standing issue with staff turnover and recruitment yet no one seems to really ask themselves why...

@AGlinnerOfHope
'Grey rock. When you disinvest from the situation it becomes much easier.
At the moment, you are about what’s happening, about helping people and improving things. That’s utterly pointless in the context you have, so become a ‘computer says no’ person. Push back in a bland, distracted fashion.
Have you sent the booking form? Ok, let me know when you do.
Is it in the diary? Ok, we’ll give me a nudge when you’ve done that bit and so I can do my side. That’s odd, it’s not in my diary and I can’t see an email about it.'

Yes that is the approach I am going to take.

I think the issue is that I don't trust my manager to always back me up unfortunately as there is a lot of wooly feedback about 'building bridges' and 'politics' which is no use whatsoever...