I was a volunteer research assistant in the evenings after work. I have volunteered for the last 2 years as an undergrad.
The principal investigator told me the evening before that I had no participants on the schedule for the rest of the week. In the morning, I checked my schedule and still had no participants. I ended up needing to stay after at work and missed the email while I was working that she had scheduled someone with me a few hours before the session was to take place.
Since I had to stay after at work I missed the session, and was not in a position to check my email or I would have let her know. She absolutely was pissed at me. I explained to her what happened an apologized.
She threatened to fire me and added “the fact that you missed a participant is very upsetting for me”. I'm sorry, but I cannot hang up on a client to prioritize lab participants and as far as I knew I had no one coming into the lab. She sent a pretty nasty message and I get it, running a study is hard especially when it is falling apart.
I told her that since my contribution to the lab was expendable to her, and given the state of our declining relationship that I need to withdraw my ability to volunteer.
To me it doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong. Don't threaten to fire someone if you are not prepared to lose their free labor. If me missing one participant is very upsetting, I can only imagine how upsetting the next few weeks will be as it takes awhile to train people on this protocol.
I've blocked her, and have been enjoying my weekend playing video games with my husband. It feels AMAZING!!! I am looking forward to the free time in my evenings again.