About 6 months ago I had to move back to where my family lives and find a job there. I was recommended a coordinator position at a respectable school. The temp period was 90 days, after which they would make the decision whether or not to take me full time. There was another job which had already expressed clear interest in hiring me, but I picked the temp job instead as the institution was respected and paid a little more. For personal reasons – the full hiring aspect was incredibly important and was finalized in writing by the head of the department (keep this in mind).
During job training a bunch of red flags popped up. Virtually all scheduling dates were wrong, and processes were out of date by years. My supervisor did not seem concerned, and department administrators did not care until it came to their desk. I started asking about previous people who had the position, and the universal response was that the position was set up to fail. Closer to the end of the temp date – people who took the role would voice the myriad of concerns and be let go. I had attempted to prepare by heavily documenting everything and reaffirming with supervisor and staff regarding my performance.
This worked, but i was quickly notified that they still would not be able to hire me. It turns out that there was an indefinitely long freeze on any hiring, which had been in place for 6+ months. When I pressed about the freeze, I was not taken seriously. For the next 3 months after the temp period was supposed to end, the fallout of insufficient systems became much clearer as the supervisor and administrators i am supposed to rely on according to job procedure repeatedly provided disinformation. This was unfortunately normal, but it started happening at a rate I was not prepared for. This led to me needing to verify all information personally as distrust in my superiors had become essential to the success of the position. It was a lot of extra work and I eventually missed a few emails from students and was fired.
During the short firing meeting, it seemed like they already knew the job was terrible, and steered the conversation away from the misleading temp time as much as possible. They were also wide-eyed that I knew anything about the history of the position. I told them that I completely understood the situation considering for the last 8 years anyone who took the role had been sacked.