I work for a nonprofit law firm, and I used to enjoy working with them because my co-workers were easy to get along with, and I felt like my work was meaningful. I wasn’t just filling the pockets of some rich guy who wanted more money, I was helping low-income people in the right direction to obtain an attorney when no one else could help them.
Ever since new upper management took over, things only went downhill from here. More than half of our staff is gone ever since our new managing attorney showed up, yet she still insists on blaming us instead of taking responsibility.
My new manager has loathed me (and my co-workers) since day one. She’s constantly looking for small non-issues to blow out of porportion and act like they’re a big deal.
I already know I’m getting fired. They haven’t told me, but it’s obvious they want me gone. They put me on probation because I “followed the directions of my old supervisors, and my new one didn’t like it”. Whenever I express my concerns, she plays the “Nuh uh, I don’t wanna hear it!” card.
Where am I supposed to go from here? I wouldn’t mind making less money than I currently make, which is $43,000 per year.
Talking to other people who work there and reading reviews can help. But the real issue is hierarchical management style is always going to be vulnerable to abuse by bad actors because your managers have near total power over you.
In the private sector the solution is worker’s coops. I’m not sure what it would be called in the nonprofit world but there are likely more democratically run organizations in a similar vein.
Another alternative is finding somewhere with a strong union. Unions can also be toxic in some ways but usually far less so than normal work power dynamics.
According to the US-Worker-COop Directory, my state doesn’t have a single democratic workplace. :(
Damn that sucks. I bet there is one somewhere though, they may not have all of them listed in once place. Just as an example there is one not far from where I live that isn’t on that map.
How do you find jobs that aren’t on the map?
Tough, I just heard about it through word of mouth. You can try web searches but it will be hard because most coops are consumer coops which won’t necessarily have the same democratic rights for workers.