Tag: Career

My Resignation

Afro Penny11 Comments

One of the great things about having this blog is that it is a place for me to confess all of my financial-related neuroses. I am financially intimate with you all in a way that I would never consider behaving in “real life.” However, this also means that you know where all the financial bodies are buried. I can’t paint a distractingly cheerful picture for you about my choices without you considering what it means for me financially. And this is mostly a good thing…unless I want to make a decision that would not appear to be in line with the financial goals I express here. Like resigning from my current job without another offer. Let me finish!

My last day at Organization C will be on July 31st. So…how did that happen? Honestly, it was a confluence of many different things. Most significantly, it was the nature of my role (think social equity focused) and Organization C’s desire to be “neutral” while advocating for democracy. How do you do that? How is it possible to hold up voting as a civic “right” and a civic “good” and be “neutral” when states pass laws that are meant to target and diminish voter turnout among minority groups? And if that is all you do, say “voting good,” then what are you really doing? Really accomplishing? And does this moment in American history, in the ongoing experiment in democracy, not demand more?

If I am honest, I had only been with Organization C for only a few weeks before I determined that the organization didn’t really do anything. To be fair, this was not always the case. The organization was founded with a specific mission and focus that was accomplished several decades after its founding. And there were several points in the last few decades where the leaders of the organization contemplated whether or not it needed to still exist. I think they decided to continue, for historical reasons, however, they no longer had a targeted mission or focus and consequentially the organization is a bit aimless and doing things without any way to demonstrate the efficacy or impact of their work. And it would be one thing if this was just my opinion but it’s not. It is the opinion of quite a few board members who struggle to define and advocate for what the organization “does.” However, the current president, my supervisor, is committed to this path…

Perhaps the final straw came when the organization asked me, as the only person of color on the staff, to help lead a pitch to a city struggling to respond to community anger after a policeman killed an unarmed black man, and the video leaked showing an interaction that was markedly different than what the police report stated. After meeting with the chief of police, it was clear that neither the department nor the city was really interested in meaningful reform. They just wanted people to stop being angry. We told them what they needed to do to have productive conversations with the community but they weren’t really interested. They just needed an external organization to co-sign on their plan. And my organization needed me to co-sign on their plan as a black face. While I understand that non-profit organizations need to raise money, and sometimes form non-mission-focused alliances under this auspice, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just be a black face standing at the front of the room supporting a bad plan designed to suppress community anger.

There were other reasons that factored more or less significantly into my decision to resign but I need not discuss all of them here. I made this decision a little more than a week ago and waited for panic, anxiety, or regret to set in. I’m still waiting…

This isn’t a cliffhanger, it’s just the end of part 1. I will be back on Friday, my last day at Organization C, to discuss my immediate next steps. And just so no one thinks I have entirely left financial responsibility behind me, I have an interview with University B, for a temporary (9 months), fully remote role, scheduled for this Thursday.

I want you back…

Afro Penny8 Comments

Recently, I read an article on 90s nostalgia, and apparently, a Gen-Z TikToker pronounced N’SYNC by articulating every letter in the band’s name. While other millennials were outraged by the blasphemy that could befall such a revered band of their youth, I thought…eh. Each generation has its own pop stars and I have never shared the fondness of my predecessors for the New Kids or for Jack Harlow or BTS of today’s youth. In any instance, “I want you back,” has always been a bop and that doesn’t seem to be up for inter-generational debate. It is also the essence of a recent meeting I had with a dean at University B…

As you will remember, I left University B in December of last year not because I didn’t like my job (sure, there were aspects of the role that were less than desirable, but that is true of all jobs). I left because, despite service to the department, division, and university beyond what was expected, I was offered a “promotion” without an accompanying raise. While I didn’t share it here, I was infuriated by this because 1) my requested raise to accompany the promotion was very modest; I asked for $5,000.00, 2) there was no counter offer; I wasn’t offered any additional money at all, and 3) I knew of a friend in another department within the same division that did get a $5,000.00 raise after her promotion to the same title; she also worked for the university for a shorter period of time and had fewer years of experience. For me, it felt like either the university didn’t materially value my contributions, despite their continuous verbal lauding of my work, or my boss didn’t have the desire to push for my increase. It was only later that I found out how truly correct I was…

In the time since I had made the transition from full-time employee to part-time temporary employee, there had been significant shifts in my division. The new Dean, who started around the same time I did, not long before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, finally began to unveil her new plan for the division. It included the removal of several people from leadership positions for which they were under-qualified or ineffective; including my former bosses’ boss. I was impressed. While there is much, much, much more to the story than would make sense to share here, the Dean and I were known to each other and she was unaware as to why I had decided to leave. So I sent her an email.

I sent this email with less than two weeks left on my temporary contract, the point of which was to let her know that I had genuinely loved working with students and was hopeful about the future of the division under her leadership; and, that discussions about compensation, which she seemed to have demurred from at past division-wide meetings, had to be taken more seriously. While I expected some form of a response, at minimum, a fare-thee-well, what I received was a dinner invitation…

Dinner with the Dean was relaxed and we spent most of the time talking about shared experiences in higher education. After about an hour and a half passed, just as I had to put up some pretense about splitting the bill, she scooped up the billfold from the table and looked me directly in the eyes, and said, “So, what would it take to get you to come back?”

The cost of work autonomy…

Afro Penny4 Comments

Work is incredibly stressful right now on all fronts, at both workplaces, so I should be working on a presentation I have tomorrow at 9:00AM or a journal article that was due today. Instead, I am here…

I will be the first to admit that, in the context of both my personal and professional relationships, I privilege some degree of control, and when I don’t feel like I have it, I try to negotiate for it. If that fails, my next instinct is not to fight but to flee. Unsurprisingly, this propensity is not entirely limited to my career and has occasionally been a theme in my romantic relationships. In any instance, it is how I am feeling at the moment about my employment with Organization C. My new boss (for the sake of clarity I will call him the Politician) is incredibly entitled and treats donors and funders in a strictly transactional manner as if they owe our organization (a non-profit) thousands of dollars instead of it being a collaborative partnership towards “shared” goals. This is incredibly frustrating and thus far my most significant contribution to Organization C has been building a better relationship with our largest donor, who said, and I quote, “He [Politician] comes off as entitled to all of us. Listen, I want you [Afro Penny] to be successful but things need to change.” Right.

For a moment, I thought perhaps I had jumped from the frying pan into the fire in my departure from University B, as at least I liked my boss at University B, even if I couldn’t trust him to act in the best interest of my career, but things are equally messy there. The promotions and raises my boss (we’ll call him the Preacher) promised my colleagues (and me prior to my departure) never materialized and instead they were offered a very small salary adjustment. And while other information might lead me to believe that this results from organizational changes that are not entirely the Preacher’s fault, his continued inability to be transparent is baffling. Especially when the information is known across the division. Instead of just saying, “Unfortunately, things are happening that are out of my control…” he is instead going with, “I am just as shocked and surprised as you are. I didn’t even notice that your ‘offer’ letters from human resources were for a small ‘salary adjustment’ and not for a promotion even though I sent the form letter directly to you myself.” Right.

Had I stayed at University B, I might have more job fulfillment as I would still be doing direct program work and supporting students. However, I would also be in the same position as my former colleagues: underpaid and unable to trust my boss to advocate for me or deal with me fairly. It is in reflecting on this cushion and a soft place in which I sit* (satire, because yes, I recognize my egregious privilege) that thoughts of fleeing arise. They are of the short-term and medium-term variety and vacillate between quitting and heading back abroad to teach English and hustling to get my debt below $50,000.00 this year and then quitting to do (insert numerous entrepreneurial ideas here).

For all of the reasons that have crossed your mind in the seconds it took you to read those statements, I will likely do neither of those things. Instead, I will go to bed. Get up early. Finish the presentation. Write the article. Tend to all of my other tasks. And generally, be grateful I have well-paying employment. However, before those things, during those things, in between those things, I will also be contemplating the cost of work autonomy.


*To be more explicit, I acknowledge that the mismatch at Organization C between myself and the Politician, as well as the lesser mismatch between myself and my role, is of my own making. I was so intent on acquiring a better-paying position that I placed far more emphasis in the interview process on selling myself to them. I should have spent as much time
| ensuring that the role, and the leadership, were a good fit for me. It is much easier to say it now, but I will do a better job of interviewing in the future.