Resignation, Regrettably

Since I last posted (oh, about an hour ago), I've started thinking.
I am very comfortable where I work. I love the people around me - from the facilitator of the Fit for Life program to the cleaning ladies to the caterers - I think they're all wonderful.
The only person that I have not been able to get comfortable around is my boss.
And today, I confirmed that this might be the best move.
I was trying to explain something and I was cut off multiple times while I was speaking. Like, mid-sentence cut off.
When she came in this morning and announced that she was getting two new volunteers from her previous position (at another NGO, I'm assuming) and that they would be in charge of everything (because they're German and assertive, she said), I realized this might be the perfect time for me to step out.
This is not the first time she's wished that I act more German. She's said it before, that her German volunteers are more assertive, all said while looking pointedly at me.

But when I try to stand my ground, I'm run over, just as I was in our conversation today. There was no attempt to understand my side (I was trying to explain that what we're doing is little more than theft and she was trying to tell me just to change the material to make it alright) and there was no attempt made to ease my doubts about this project (a facilitator's manual).

When I offered to guest lecture on gender and sexuality, she told me she'd need a copy of my lecture so that she could have others do it after I was gone. I was mildly offended. Even though I'm not the kind of person whose gender lectures are going to be wildly valuable and sought after, they are still mine and not for use by anyone who wanders in.
That's the problem that I have with this whole manual thing. It's theft. It's intellectual property of someone else, and some of it is copyrighted. And they're stealing it to use in these programs. She tells me they're going to be accredited by the SETAs but I'm not entirely convinced that accredidation is possible with odds and ends and scraps of material.


I didn't come here to Google. I didn't come here to sit on the South African version of Craigslist and troll for low-level positions. I came here to do something. And business volunteer or not, I'm not busy enough and I'm not satisfied with my position. Perhaps it's true, I am not assertive enough. But I'm not entirely sure that there's anything to assert.
I've been declared Job Placement officer and that is what I have been unable to do.
I have raised the issue with Cheryl, my boss, who recently had a treadmill put into her office. I have not been satisfied with the response.

I will go to her today and tell her that I'm not going to be in tomorrow because I'm going to the office to have a discussion about my placement and then I will leave.
And I'm not sure that I'll be back.

I have the film project laying before me, something that I'm actually quite confident in. I can edit video (even if it's only iMovie that I have with me) and I can create a nice, short video that is aesthetically alluring and packs a narrative punch.
This will take me two weeks or so.
Hopefully in this time, things will start to come together again.

I'm upset. I feel as though I failed, but then I realize that perhaps this wasn't something that had success as an end point from the beginning.
I'm sad.
I adore the people here.
But I realize that I did not come here to do these things - I came here to learn and to put some of those skills to work. I did not come here to sit and work with a system that is unworkable. I'm comforted by the fact that no other volunteer has lasted as long as I have here besides one Australian girl.
The others always leave.

Selfish, probably. But entirely necessary, absolutely.


I've been unhappy for a couple of weeks and I've exhausted my options.
And so there will be a meeting with Projects Abroad tomorrow and we will explore the options. I'm going to be firm with them and stand my ground. I came here for a business internship, I didn't come here to do anything else.
But at this point, I'm even willing to join the building project, I'm that desperate for an escape.