Today was a bad day. Really, this week was a bad week. This week, being unemployed has weighed heavily on my heart.

After getting a rejection letter from the organization with which I interviewed twice, I looked for jobs virtually the entire day yesterday (even searching during a couple of games of Scrabble), finishing with a list of twelve at about 2:00 AM. I then put off writing all the cover letters and turned to my novel.

Five pages later the clock struck (figuratively) 6:00 AM, and I turned into bed where I read for an hour before finally falling asleep. Today, I awoke earlier so that perhaps I could shift back a bit in my waking/sleeping hours, but I did not wish to be awake. I would rather have slept the entire day away.

Today was the first grand opening since I left my old job. It was hard to take knowing that world has gone on without me, but really knowing that all the work I did do has been virtually abandoned. The new website is horribly out of date, having not been updated in nearly three months. The new program direction is not updated. The staff and board changes are not current. The event calendar is not current. The new module I created before I left showing the current development work has lain fallow as well. Having a current and dynamic website was the foundation of positioning the organization for a greater public presence...and it is has been abandoned.

There are several ex-employees who are quite vocal about the intellectual dishonesty that regularly takes place at the organization, from the community development programs to the real estate development. One of whom has made a bit of career about doing so. I can understand that desire. I can understand the utter frustration at how people who regularly disregard ethics are seemingly rewarded while those who asked the hard questions were booted out. It seems harsh, but no matter how my ex-boss tries to rationalize the behavior, the behavior still exists. She would say that all companies were this way. Once a review of the programs area showed a lack of data to support the claims, she said it would be better for the future participants for that not to come to public light. Forget the past and move forward. Yet, what is the company teaching the youth in the programs if taking money from funders based on lies is at the heart of the work? I mean, would the funders who are backing the youth programs really want to see teenagers being encouraged to make a movie about boyfriend jealousy during a much hyped leadership all day workshop? Ask the majority of the kids there what they learned about leadership or who was their favorite leader from the months long study of the subject and they couldn't answer. They could answer the questions to the trivia quiz because they had been rehearsing them, the answers, not the subject matter.

I moved from passionately arguing for an organization to repeatedly trying to understand the mildew hidden beneath the paint. I believed at least my ex-boss was not a part of the cover up, but I think that really the best way to describe her is a walking Hallmark card. She can say just what you want to hear, but no real actions follow her words. In that regard, given how I've waxed poetically about her here in my blog, I feel the fool.

Yes, I am sad and hurt at being let go. Yet, it is more than an inability to walk away. I keep finding myself being confronted by the ugly reality of an organization that I thought was a step above others. The last call from my ex-boss only served to trouble the waters that I still find lapping about my ankles. I was frankly appalled that the real purpose of her call was to tell me that the ex-vp was dating one of the worst program staff persons, which is now evident as to the reason she was never fired despite the rather egregious behavior reported by several of her colleagues. I was appalled that she would just call and tell me something that gave credence to my heartache at the seedy underbelly to that which I had poured myself into building up and promoting. Even so, what bothered me more is her telling me that during her visits to funders she was discovering that the grant reports were long overdue.

Yes, the person who is not skilled at writing, who did not really bring in additional funds to the organization in the nearly two years she was there, who never performed an analysis of past resource development, who never created a strategy for addressing the financial needs of the organization, and who never collated the contact information of the funding program officers also did not effectively manage the report process. I wanted to scream in frustration when she mentioned that. I mean, why did the manager still have her job? The answer: incompetence doesn't matter. If you are willing to perpetuate the veneer of the organization, you will succeed.

So, tell me this: is it really that way everywhere? Is even the non-profit world just a game? Is there a place for a person who really does pursue intellectual honesty over career advancement? Will I ever find a place where I can belong and use my skills and contribute something to this world? And when will I learn not to be taken in by those who claim to be what they are not?