Using a burner account here. I have several people in my life who I got all hyped up about what I thought was going to be my new role, so also hoping to direct them to this post so I don't have to repeat the story over and over. My hope is that writing everything out will help me process it and move on. This is going to be a LONG read, so I've TL;DR'd at the bottom. Appreciate any support or kind words.

Backstory

My partner and I have lived in our shuttle bus conversion over the past year+ and our 5 year plan has been to continue a life on the road before we hopefully save up enough money to buy a property and start a tiny house homestead. My partner has a stable remote job that's part-time and I have a seasonal remote job that I'm plugged into twice a year, but doesn't provide enough income to meet our financial goals. I've been applying to several remote jobs over the past few months in order to bridge the gap, and due to my father's declining health and house situation I widened my search to include some hybrid-remote situations local to him. Some additional context concerning my dad: he's got hoarding disorder and severe anxiety/depression that's kept him from addressing some alarming physical health concerns/crucial house repairs. We stayed all summer last year but weren't able to accomplish our goals of improving his state of health and estate because of how defiant he became when we tried to address anything (a symptom of his condition).

The Job

The job description had remarkable overlap with me in both its experience requisites and leftist values: it was a public-facing role with an emphasis on fostering both creative and community growth and a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and fighting systemic oppression. My demonstrable experience actually eclipsed that of the role by 8 years. The salary was considerably below market rate, especially given my experience, and the benefits were scant (1 week of PTO, 15 holidays, NO health or dental plan). This is for a 40 hour work-week.

I was willing to overlook this for a couple reasons:

1. It would give me the opportunity to tackle my dad's situation at a less traumatizing pace to him and would enable me to use a potential job offer as a carrot (the carrot being we would stay local to him)
2. While I have extensive experience in the field, most of it has been as a self-starter and this would be my first ever salaried position (I'm in my mid thirties). I saw it as an opportunity for some upward mobility as I've finally been ready to commit to a more stable career in order to realize my life goals.
3. The mission of the space and nature of the work really resonated with me.

The Interview Process

My first interview occurred almost a month ago now. We had a great first meeting and I (foolishly) felt okay letting my guard down a bit when she (the executive director, who was hiring for the role) said “oh yeah, we're an ACAB family here”. I found out that it was a new role being sculpted from her current role so that the organization could expand. They also briefly had hired someone for the position but it didn't pan out. I impressed her with my experience and reflections about the role and space. In my follow-up email, I asked her if there had been any community interest in the role. I was surprised that they were considering someone from outside of the community as typically a role of this nature is sourced from within the community. She was especially impressed with that reflection, as it indicated to her that I shared the same mission of the space and had a great understanding of the community element the role required. She mentioned that she hoped to fill the role by the end of the week.

Now here's where I approached things a little more non-traditionally than I normally would. Partially because at this point, I was not even a full-toe-in on the idea of giving up bus life to stay in my hometown and because it seemed like a more open work environment (clearly artsy and leftist from how they described themselves). For our follow-up interview, which was in-person, I asked to bring along my partner, as her input was essential if we were to alter our life trajectory so radically. This did not phase the ED at all and we had another great in-person interview and follow-up emails. I felt strong about my candidacy and she said she would be pushing back her decision another week while she followed up with a couple other candidates. The deadline came and went and when I followed up with her, she affirmed that I was “a top candidate amongst some great applicants” but she needed to push her decision another week as she had some community interest in the role. I assured her that this was great and said in earnestness that if there was a qualified candidate from within the community that I hope they'd be her first pick.

As mentioned, I was very (too) transparent with her throughout the interview process and let her know that a) our current plan was to leave the 1st of October, b) if I were offered the role, I would cancel our October/November itinerary and work in person through December, but then I would need to be remote for 6 weeks between then and January so we could go back to our “home base” and drive back up with all of our gear. Normally I wouldn't even bring this up unless officially offered a position, but at this point we were 3 days away from our departure date and I kinda just needed an answer either way. I told her I totally understood if the 6 weeks remote would exclude me from further consideration and she assured me that it did not.

2 days before we were set to leave, she messaged me the following:

“Thank you so much for your patience with this process. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your transparency, thoughtful questions, and responses. Based on our conversations, I believe you have a genuine understanding of the work we're doing and aspire to do as we continue to grow. 

I'd like to talk with you about a formal offer for the position. I'm not sending one over because I have been thinking of slight changes to the position as posted based on your feedback, your time and travel needs, and organizational needs. I think I may have some solutions that serve all purposes, but I would like to have a conversation with you before sending something over.”

She wasn't able to hop on a call that day so we spoke the following day (Sep 30) and discussed what I now recognize as a textbook bait and switch. The broad strokes were that it would be a reduced work week (32 hours instead of 40), a higher hourly rate but lower overall salary (almost $9k less than what was originally discussed), and an added mentorship component. She framed this as something she concocted based on my feedback about the role and the desire to find community leadership to eventually pass the torch along to. Since I didn't have any strong objections to the shift in the role and actually bought into her line that this was “based on my feedback”, she said she would “send over the official offer” in an hour. 3 hours later I received what I assumed was the official offer (I was so green to salaried positions that I didn't realize offer sheets were a thing). What this actually was, was an updated description of the position as well as a description for the other new position that had been carved from the original role I'd applied for.

Understanding this to be an official offer, I told her I'd need a day to get back to her as I discussed things with my dad, partner, and reexamined our yearly budget with the new salary. My partner and I fully committed to the idea of giving up bus life for a year to pursue this opportunity and we had a 3-hour long conversation with my dad, where he committed to letting us help turn his life around, improve the condition of his house, and being more proactive about his health. We canceled our October reservations. Everything was in alignment and I sent the ED my counteroffer, with the intention of accepting the role even if they couldn't accommodate my requests. I tried to be mindful that they're a struggling non-profit and tempered my asks: a $1750 salary bump with an additional week of PTO (or 2 weeks of PTO with no bump), a change in job title that would more laterally reflect my work experience, and the ability to work one week every other month NOT on the weekends (typical work week was Wed-Sun).

Here was her follow-up from that point:

ED: I will be able to get back to you with more this afternoon. I wait tables Monday for our family’s business so I’ll be off email until about 3:30. 

For now I can say that monthly weekends off is not a problem and just needs to be scheduled around shows. Wed-Sunday isn’t a firm rule, just how it generally shakes down. 

I’ll get back with more detail about the rest this afternoon. Thanks again for your thoughtfulness! 

and then later:

Just a quick follow up. I’m going to need until tomorrow at 9am to respond in full. Some of your request requires a little more digging into budget line items to make sure I’m making a viable offer. I apologize for the length of this process! 

At 12pm the next day, after still not hearing she asked to get on the line at 1:30pm. Great! We could finally nip this in the bud.

The Call Of Doom

I enthusiastically answered the phone. She again apologized for the length of the process and I told her no worries as I understood I threw a lot at her and appreciated that she was working to accommodate my requests. And then: “so I've been in communication with the board and we've decided to go in a different direction. I really appreciate all the time, patience, and thoughtfulness you've put into this whole process.” *silence and confusion*

“I'm sorry, my understanding is that you were working to accommodate my counteroffer. What…what's happening?”

“We've decided to go in a different direction with the role” *shock sets in*

“So you're rescinding the official offer you sent over? I thought you were considering my counteroffer and that was the reason for the delay…I mentioned in my email that my requests were negotiable, but I felt it fair to advocate for myself based on my experience”

“no no no no…I never sent over an official offer, what I sent was an updated description of the role and the new role that we discussed, but I can totally understand how based on our previous conversations you would think that. this didn't have anything to do with your counteroffer”

“I'm honestly just shocked right now. So what changed that you determined you needed to go in another direction”

“I'm not at liberty to discuss that”

“Okay…*silence*…well then I wish you all the best”

Lessons Learned:

• Wait until I have a signed offer from a prospective job before making a counter-offer/sharing exciting news/altering life plans.
• Do not be transparent about prospective life plans/decisions with future prospective employers.
• Do not ignore red flags. In reflecting on everything today, I realized there were several: the executive director seemed stressed out in her role and hinted at chaotic elements within the organization. She mentioned that she would want to “warn off some stupid person trying to [[start a similar organization]]” and acknowledged that “if she were in my position she would see that they're considering sourcing someone from outside of the community for a community-facing role as a red flag” (in response to one of my questions). And then of course, my initial wide-eyed interpretation that the bait-and-switch of the position was made based on my feedback, to accommodate me specifically for the role, was in fact just a face value b&s, offering less hours with increased responsibility.
• Be aware of timeline. Initially she told me she wanted to fill the role within a week. After my second (in-person) interview, it got pushed back another week. And then a third. And then when I assumed we were moving forward and that she was trying to accommodate my counter-offer, it took an additional two days of them stalling before they told me they decided to go in a different direction.
• Do not naively believe that just because an organization seemingly aligns with my values, that they will act with integrity — especially during the hiring process.
• A full time position that doesn't offer health insurance is a SCAM.

Thoughts & Feelings

• In addition to the disappointment, anger, and sadness – the blaring things are shame and embarrassment — it's hard not to feel like this is a reflection on me. In all honesty, my mental health has been rough over the past year and without this job providing me any sort of explanation as to why they flipped the script on me, my anxiety brain is left scrambling to try and make sense of it. Anyone with anxiety/depression/ADHD I'm sure can commiserate at how paralyzing managing intrusive thoughts can be. Additionally, I feel like all my friends and family who I excitedly shared the “good news” with will think I'm a rube.
• My best guess at what happened was that my counteroffer spooked them. As mentioned, all communication prior to today indicated that they were preparing a counteroffer and I was working under the assumption that after our most recent phone call, that they were examining budget line items to try and accommodate. My assumption is that the executive director actually was very enthusiastic about having me in the role and the board of directors jumped in and nixed it once they received my counter. That said, I still feel that the ED acted duplicitously, at least for the latter part of this process. I'm also trying to hold some compassion for them as I know humans are complex and not always
• I'm doing my best to stay positive: clearly the org was chaotic and at least in this case exemplified an extreme lack of integrity. My father finally agreed to accepting some of the changes that will improve his quality of life. I learned some valuable lessons about the job hunt and am learning to not blindly put my trust in people. The process affirmed for me that I'm a human with a lot of integrity, experience, and passion and I feel confident I'll land on my feet.

TL;DR: A community-oriented job strung me along for a month about a position. I was extremely transparent throughout the whole interview process and that seemed to position myself as a top candidate. My partner and I cancelled our travel plans after received what they implied was an official offer. They rescinded the offer after stringing me along for another few days under the guise that they were trying to accommodate my counter.