Wasted Charity
To graduate I had to do an internship for 200 hours. We are supposed to get a paid position in the field we are going into. I asked my professor if it had to be a PAID internship, because I really wanted to work at a Not-for-profit battered women's shelter here in town. And they don't hire very many people on salary. Most of the people who work there are volunteers.
Anyway, so I got the job and I was so proud to work there. I loved going in everyday and making a difference. Women were escaping their abusers with the help of what I was doing. It didn't matter to me that I started out doing peon work like stuffing envelopes, or entering constituent data into Raiser's Edge, a program I had never heard of before I started working there. I was making a difference, and that was all that mattered.
During my first interview when I was applying for the Internship, it had come up that I was interested in web design and I was learning HTML on the side. They were very excited to hear this, because they needed someone to update their website. I was totally thrilled. I have designed websites before, but never one for a business that was known in the the state, the region, and in some circles they were known Nationally. When I got hired this was one of my goals was to get the website updated and everything in order for whoever was going to keep updating to know where everything would be.
So, the first week I pour my heart and soul into this thing. I work on it all thru the day, having several delays because I was working from home, and I would have to wait for someone at the office to email me this, that or the other thing. I even completed my intership hours and was now working out of the goodness of my heart... because I really believe everyone should participate in charity at some point in their life... not to mention I thought a project like this would look great on my resume.
Now I understand having delays, they are a not for profit, and they do a lot of things at once... but at one point in time it took TWO FREAKING WEEKS for them to send me images I needed for some animations I made for an online fundraiser they were doing. Now, I think this is a little ridiculous, especially for someone who is doing this on their own time and not getting paid for it. My internship was over and I had no ties or contract whatsoever. You would think they would pay closer attention to volunteers who work this hard for them. Appreciate them. Apparently not.
So, to complete the whole project it takes about a month. I had to wait on the animations, I had to wait for FTP access (which I never got because the lady in the office had no idea what a FTP was... so I finally just zipped the site and told them how to upload it). The whole thing looks WONDERFUL. I put it all in frames, so the images on the top of the page don't continually load, which originally were causing hell for anyone on dialup. I added new pages to the site, and I updated all of the Board of Directors stuff... and a bunch of misc stuff.
The girl I was working with at the office finally emails me that they are uploading the new and improved website on the 30th (of May)... so I am really excited to see everything in action. I had it loaded on a subdomain on my website so they could see what I was doing and how much had been changed, but was never on the website cuz of the glitch with the FTP accelss. So today rolls around and I remember that she was gonna have everything up by the 30th... so I go check it all out.
I WAS FLABBERGHASTED
The fucking idiots didn't even use any of the work I did, except the two animations I made, and then they even had the nerve to resize one of them (which totally made it look like ASS) without even contacting me about it. Whatever happened to Artist integrity? Damn.
So now I am fucking livid cuz the morons working there had me work on this project for about a month... most of which ended up being on my own time because I really wanted to help them out with the site, and I was over my Intership Hours... so I just did it outta the kindness of my own heart. See if I ever do that shit again. Stupid fuckwads. Gawd I am really angry about it too... cuz the site looked AWESOME... and now I am embarrassed to even be associated with it. They made my work look like crap, and I will be damned if I put that in my portfolio looking as asstastic as it does. All that work down the drain. All for NOTHING. I guess they can count me OUT when it comes to any other volunteer jobs. I am permanently removing their organization from my list of people I am willing to support and donate time and or money to. Screw that. I dunno why they wasted my time.
There are so many other places who would LOVE to get help like that for free. People who would be grateful, people who would offer a thank you and even a hug. People who would use the work I gave them, and be happy to do so. People who won't waste my time.
Anyway, so I got the job and I was so proud to work there. I loved going in everyday and making a difference. Women were escaping their abusers with the help of what I was doing. It didn't matter to me that I started out doing peon work like stuffing envelopes, or entering constituent data into Raiser's Edge, a program I had never heard of before I started working there. I was making a difference, and that was all that mattered.
During my first interview when I was applying for the Internship, it had come up that I was interested in web design and I was learning HTML on the side. They were very excited to hear this, because they needed someone to update their website. I was totally thrilled. I have designed websites before, but never one for a business that was known in the the state, the region, and in some circles they were known Nationally. When I got hired this was one of my goals was to get the website updated and everything in order for whoever was going to keep updating to know where everything would be.
So, the first week I pour my heart and soul into this thing. I work on it all thru the day, having several delays because I was working from home, and I would have to wait for someone at the office to email me this, that or the other thing. I even completed my intership hours and was now working out of the goodness of my heart... because I really believe everyone should participate in charity at some point in their life... not to mention I thought a project like this would look great on my resume.
Now I understand having delays, they are a not for profit, and they do a lot of things at once... but at one point in time it took TWO FREAKING WEEKS for them to send me images I needed for some animations I made for an online fundraiser they were doing. Now, I think this is a little ridiculous, especially for someone who is doing this on their own time and not getting paid for it. My internship was over and I had no ties or contract whatsoever. You would think they would pay closer attention to volunteers who work this hard for them. Appreciate them. Apparently not.
So, to complete the whole project it takes about a month. I had to wait on the animations, I had to wait for FTP access (which I never got because the lady in the office had no idea what a FTP was... so I finally just zipped the site and told them how to upload it). The whole thing looks WONDERFUL. I put it all in frames, so the images on the top of the page don't continually load, which originally were causing hell for anyone on dialup. I added new pages to the site, and I updated all of the Board of Directors stuff... and a bunch of misc stuff.
The girl I was working with at the office finally emails me that they are uploading the new and improved website on the 30th (of May)... so I am really excited to see everything in action. I had it loaded on a subdomain on my website so they could see what I was doing and how much had been changed, but was never on the website cuz of the glitch with the FTP accelss. So today rolls around and I remember that she was gonna have everything up by the 30th... so I go check it all out.
I WAS FLABBERGHASTED
The fucking idiots didn't even use any of the work I did, except the two animations I made, and then they even had the nerve to resize one of them (which totally made it look like ASS) without even contacting me about it. Whatever happened to Artist integrity? Damn.
So now I am fucking livid cuz the morons working there had me work on this project for about a month... most of which ended up being on my own time because I really wanted to help them out with the site, and I was over my Intership Hours... so I just did it outta the kindness of my own heart. See if I ever do that shit again. Stupid fuckwads. Gawd I am really angry about it too... cuz the site looked AWESOME... and now I am embarrassed to even be associated with it. They made my work look like crap, and I will be damned if I put that in my portfolio looking as asstastic as it does. All that work down the drain. All for NOTHING. I guess they can count me OUT when it comes to any other volunteer jobs. I am permanently removing their organization from my list of people I am willing to support and donate time and or money to. Screw that. I dunno why they wasted my time.
There are so many other places who would LOVE to get help like that for free. People who would be grateful, people who would offer a thank you and even a hug. People who would use the work I gave them, and be happy to do so. People who won't waste my time.
1 Comments:
At 2:32 AM, Dawne said…
OMG Danger!
I saw that site as you were working on it! It was wonderful! And they didn't use it? What a bunch of idiots! And yes I mean idiots! The way you had it done - it would have brought lots of donations and other support into them!
I don't even want to see what they have done to it now! You had done such wonderful improvements to it!
I don't blame you for not wanting to volunteer or to donate to them anymore. I don't care what the cause is! They have so abused the work you did for them! SHAME ON THEM!
Hugs from an upset friend!
Dawne
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