I went after a job in a place where I believed I could make a difference providing a service to Black people, my people that I feel most connected to. The revolutionary side of me is passionate about affecting social change and making a difference. All fired up after finally completing my undergraduate degree I was idealistic and proudly anticipating working at a Historically Black College. My intent was to connect with African American parents and students to assist them in securing funding through Financial Aid effectively as someone who understood the anxiety they may have been experiencing. My belief is that I understood the challenge of feeling intimidated and overwhelmed but together we could come up with a plan that worked to the advantage of the student and parent and secured their admission, tuition, and housing requirements.
The work proved to be more than challenging and even though I anticipated it to be difficult I expected to be trained well enough to meet the challenge. A very wise woman that had been in the industry for almost 30 years taught me as much as she could in between the demands of her own student load and time lines.
The office operations were flat and loosely structured and the environment was highly charged by politics and big egos. When I needed help I would go to my co-workers and make every effort to get the right answer for the best outcome. In almost every instance, I received a different answer no matter who I went to. Seasoned individuals performed procedures the way it has always been done like before computers became the focus. It was effective in its time although time consuming. Fairly new professionals performed procedures in whatever way allowed it be done the fastest. Mistakes were made but time lines were met most of the time.
The biggest lesson for my was that in a Black college there are no right answers because the answers change depending on who are asking at the moment taking into account their knowledge base, experience and length of service. It was frustrating to perform simple procedures in alignment with policy and departmental guidelines and no one agreed on the best way to do one thing using the same process consistently. Decisions were frequently overturned by someone higher up on the ladder of administration.
Because of politics and egos, some administrators expected to be accommodated at a moments notice and others expected to be feared if they called or made a request. There were those that truly believed in what HBCU's represent and were fully immersed in the Black College lifestyle. Others were negative thinking unhappy people waiting for retirement and would not dare rock their respective boat to correct anything that did not involve gossip or inappropriate behavior.
The Director of my department was younger than me and operated completely from his ego. He spoke to people in an offensive manner most of the time. Even a simple request ruffled him to the point of being crude and unprofessional as an attempt to be authoritative. There were those that liked him because he was not bad to look at and then there was me, the justice fighter. I am old school and don't take too kindly to being spoken to disrespectfully by someone only 3 years older that my oldest child.
In fact he was so offensive to me that I requested meeting with him only when another director was present in the room. I made every effort to improve in any way that I was falling short and agreed to submit my work for review daily. In what was supposed to be training, my work was monitored by both directors for several weeks. I was required to provide a log of my activities hour by hour of who I talked to, with contact information included, and what I worked on with proof of the paper work that was completed.
Due the the nature of Financial Aid Counseling at this school, the interruptions were endless and mistakes were common. In truth he was looking for mistakes to document anything he could use against me when it was time to get rid of me. He was not a reasonable person and no matter what I did short of kissing his ass. This bully harassed me everyday, making up percentages to reflect the degree of mistakes he could find and over documenting any complaint from parents and students for minor things like phone calls not being returned quickly enough. They did not care about the student load of 800 to 900 students per counselor to processed. By the time they complained to someone, the story was completely embellished to a level of deliberate neglect and intentional sabotage by me for being too busy.
Differences with my Director required me to file a formal complaint due to his offensive behavior towards me. When there was something to be corrected he would insult me by saying I was a poor employee and did not know what I was doing. His training efforts was not training to improve and proved to not be beneficial because whether or not I improved did not matter, only that another mistake could be documented. Once I filed a complaint, I wanted to believe that someone above his level of administration had the skills and authority to help mend our relationship and allow us to continue working together until I could find another job on or off campus. I spoke with two university officials that assured me they would protect my job and get things back on track.
The director's behavior only got worse when he started to date a friend of mine and I was her confidant. He did not appreciate me knowing personal details of his business with her because he did not have good intentions to begin with.
Apparently, I wasn't good at “kissing ass” and allowing myself to be disrespected because the harassment became a constant micro-managing and intimidation. My performance was not evaluated for improvement but documented to be used against me.
I was not too good at cow towing to administrators or taking the blame for students and parents that complained when there was not any money available to pay their expenses or when paperwork was turned in too late. I must not have understood the part of the job that required me to be treated like a second class citizen, a lowly paper-pusher and to be insulted in front of the staff by email and in staff meetings about being too slow and inaccurate.
When other counselors made mistakes, they were spoken to about how to not allow it to happen and given the correct way to produce the right results.
My mistakes were used as an example of what was holding up the continued efficiency of meeting time lines and moving forward. No was ever complicated for the effort we made to keep up with the enormous amount of work it took to get 6000 people processed for financial aid. The financial department of every university or college is blamed for whatever goes wrong during the process of attending and paying for college. The customer service is bad, the customers bring in bad attitudes and high expectations.
I was fired from the Financial Aid office of an HBCU because I refused to fall in line with the usual way of doing things. I refused to accept substandard treatment and weak interdepartmental operations and practices. The Director of my department was in his first experience as a department head and his skills were absolutely lacking when it came to communication. He was skilled in his ability to understand the technicalities of processing Financial Aid, but had no skills to motivate his staff.
In my effort to understand how someone could be so judgmental and unfair I did my research and discovered a possible scenario. What I discovered is defined as a positional leader according to John C. Maxwell’s book, “Developing the Leader within You.”
Characteristics of a Positional Leader
•Security based on title not talent
•Level of leadership is by appointment not ability
•People will not follow a positional leader beyond his stated authority•
Positional leaders have more difficulty working with volunteers, white collar workers, and younger people. In my case the fact that I was older than he was contributed to his attitude towards me. I believe he wanted someone he could have complete authority over and I did not fit that definition. All I desired was to be respected, no matter what the issue was. My efforts to be better and to learn my job, was dismissed by him because of his involvement with my friend and his inability to effectively communicate without being a bully.
I ignored the politics and parading around like peacocks and did my job with extra effort to the very best of my ability as a college graduate using my degree to give back in service to others. The administration lacked the vision to make the process more efficient, no one could make suggestions, there was mismanagement of funds, and lack of equal funding compared to mainstream white universities. I felt so out of place and sad about our Historically Black College being so toxic and negative instead of vibrant and thriving.
The socioeconomic status of first generation students attending college, rolling deadlines, improper use of resources and ignorance prevented me from doing my job effectively. The commitment to excellence did not exist in this institution. Well, some people genuinely pressed for excellence in every way to make the most of their college experience. Some students brought their bad attitude and high expectations with them.
Any attempt on my part to address students’ issues would create more problems for me and I would be reprimanded by my director for whatever lie the student or parent told them. Applications and required documents were consistently submitted late by students and parents and the staff was always blamed.
I was angry at first because I wanted to make a difference in the African American community by taking on a difficult job and dong it to the best of my ability. At this point I am happy that it happened because it forced me to examine my career choices. I will no longer try to fit myself in where I do not belong.
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Contributor's Note
This a follow up to the first article I submitted about being bullied at work. As a result of being fired, I am pursuing my career in publishing and writing full time. I am much happier and much healthier.
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