Setting boundaries re: work schedule

[Zapbasket]

I started working at a well-funded start-up non-profit this summer that has a small staff and whose cache is that we are open 24/7. (We do crisis intervention, among other things, so there always has to be someone answering the phones.) I am the only full-time employee and as such, when I was hired I assumed my work hours would be during the week. I then realized that there were weekend hours, but I was off the hook for the first couple of months as I was moving piecemeal from my old city and traveling back and forth each weekend, 200 miles each way.

 

I'm frustrated because every week, my schedule is different, and I really would rather stick with the weekday hours. I feel like I am having to be available for this job 7 days a week, and I feel hampered from pursuing other career interests. I need additional income and it's hard to arrange work on the side when every week my schedule is different. Also, frankly, I DO NOT want to work weekends and I feel it's negotiable whether I "have" to or not since this was not one of the conditions under which I was hired.

 

Is there any way I can seem like I'm trying to be a team player while also setting a boundary so that this job doesn't take over my entire week? We have a staff meeting coming up and I know the subject of weekends will come up. Already I've rankled some people by making my desire known, not to work weekends.

 

I've been taken advantage of so many times by previous employers, and I end up resenting the situation so much that I stop looking for solutions and finally just leave. I want to assert myself more, but I'm afraid of being slammed down and forced into something I never wanted in the first place. Any advice? Thanks.

[denise_xo]

 

I've been taken advantage of so many times by previous employers, and I end up resenting the situation so much that I stop looking for solutions and finally just leave. I want to assert myself more, but I'm afraid of being slammed down and forced into something I never wanted in the first place. Any advice? Thanks.

 

Hi GreenCove,

This paragraph in particular just screams that you need to be setting your boundaries. The NGO sector can be really tough on pushing people (we're all in it to make a better world, not to make money, right?), so do it soon and do it firmly.

Make a list of whatever issues you agreed when you got employed that's not working out, and add a couple of more. Sit down with whoever you need to talk to and make your point calmly but with confidence and conviction. You don't have to worry about not sounding like a 'team player', it's pretty clear from what you're writing that that's not your problem. Starting point should be your best case scenario + a bit extra, and then have a card or two that you can give in 'return' if need be.

Good luck.

[Zapbasket]

Hi GreenCove,

This paragraph in particular just screams that you need to be setting your boundaries. The NGO sector can be really tough on pushing people (we're all in it to make a better world, not to make money, right?), so do it soon and do it firmly.

 

Thanks for responding, Denise. This is a good point you make and I hadn't thought of that as part of the problem. As it turns out, I spoke with our clinicians, with whom I work most closely, and they're feeling a lot of the same things I am. Apparently the CEO and Founder thinks of this non-profit as her "baby," and across the board does not take kindly to "opposition" of any kind. I'm outspoken and solution-driven and I think frankly she sees me as a threat...plus there's a bit of nepotism going on in that she hired her daughter, who is generally snotty, neither very discreet nor very bright, talks to me like she's my boss, and I'm sure does not speak well to her mother about me. At a public event we sponsored last week, the CEO actually failed to even mention my name when she introduced the staff to the audience--and I was sitting right in front of her, smack in the front row! People noticed, too.

 

Make a list of whatever issues you agreed when you got employed that's not working out, and add a couple of more. Sit down with whoever you need to talk to and make your point calmly but with confidence and conviction. You don't have to worry about not sounding like a 'team player', it's pretty clear from what you're writing that that's not your problem. Starting point should be your best case scenario + a bit extra, and then have a card or two that you can give in 'return' if need be.

Good luck.

 

My plan is to write an email to the CEO as well as the medical director, who absolutely has my back. I'm going to use as an example how I just finished working 10 days in a row, that precisely *because* I am the only full-time person this is what ends up happening when I work weekends, and I simply cannot do it again in the interest of keeping a balance that enables me to continue doing this job. (i.e., a faint warning that if I am forced to continue working this random schedule, I will leave. I teach skiing and I do have a full-time job awaiting me at the ski school if I want it.)