u/Anxious-Alps-2500

Hello! Possibly not the right flair, as my org doesn’t have an HR department… but my issue is still somewhat HR-related.

A couple of months ago, I started working for a very small non-profit (I’m one of two FT employees) where I work in event management and communications. We organise two flagship conferences and approximately four seminars per year. I never intended on pursuing a career in event management and personally don’t think I’m well-suited to it.

I left my previous organisation after my manager laid off our Fundraising & Events Officer. I was asked to cover his work until they could hire a replacement, and — surprise! — they never did. Managing one or two events every month on top of my existing workload completely burnt me out.

One issue that I raised with my manager at the time was that I never felt as if I could take my annual leave (I’m based in Europe and get 21 days per year). At any given moment, we were 2 to 4 weeks away from our next event — so I could take a handful of days off here and there, but I didn’t feel comfortable taking an extended period of time off (five to ten days) because there was nobody available to “cover” my work for me during these periods.

My manager and I agreed that we’d come up with some sort of system to ensure that I could take extended periods of annual leave to avoid burnout — but shortly after that conversation, I was made redundant, so it didn’t really matter in the end.

I started my new role in March and our first flagship conference is in June. Our next event is a conference in late October, followed by a seminar in November and another seminar in December. A couple of days ago, I asked my manager whether she had any preferences or expectations around annual leave — for example, whether she’d prefer staff not to take leave within two or three weeks of a conference, or something like that.

She said no, so I asked if I could take a week off in September for my boyfriend’s college graduation. She said no, because ticket sales for the October conference go on sale in September and she’d feel overwhelmed without me. I then asked if I could take a week off in August instead, and she said no to that as well — again because of the conference in October.

Meanwhile, our flagship conference is in mid-June and she’s taking two weeks off immediately after it finishes. At this point, it looks like I’ll have to take nearly all of my annual leave in July, since August through December are effectively blocked off for the conference and our two seminars.

I’m honestly really disappointed and upset by this. I want to stand my ground and say that this doesn’t feel fair or sustainable, but I don’t feel especially confident doing that. For anyone who works in events — how do you normally handle annual leave around “busy” periods (considering that in the non-profit sector, the “busy” season is usually all year round)?

Hello!

I started a new role at a very small non-profit two months ago, reporting directly to the CEO. Naively, I didn’t anticipate some of the challenges that come with working in such a small organisation. The main one is the complete lack of formal onboarding, training, or handover. I’m the only full-time employee, so aside from my CEO, I have no colleagues I can turn to for support, clarity or even just a sense check.

For context: I’m a young professional who has worked in the charity sector since graduating college in 2021. I generally consider myself capable, proactive, and good at just figuring things out. But since starting this job, I’ve genuinely started to wonder if I have an undiagnosed cognitive disability or something, because I just can’t seem to wrap my head around *anything*.

A huge part of the issue is communication. My CEO is a very poor communicator (or perhaps we just have different communication styles). She speaks in long, meandering, unstructured sentences. She tends to abandon one thought midway through to jump to something only somewhat related. Her instructions are vague and open to interpretation. Normally, I don’t mind vague instructions because I welcome the opportunity to demonstrate initiative and approach projects creatively; but I think my CEO actually has a very specific vision in mind, but is struggling to articulate it clearly.

I think part of the problem is that she’s also relatively new to the organisation. She started a year ago and is still trying to formalise systems and processes that apparently never existed before; but I’m just frustrated by the lack of follow-through. If I suggest we work together to find a solution or establish a process, she’ll say “Let’s think about it” or “Let’s deal with that later.” It feels impossible to get clarity or momentum on anything.

This is all frustrating but wouldn’t necessarily be an enormous issue if it weren’t for the fact that she is clearly very frustrated by how many questions I ask. Yesterday, she told me twice that I “need to just start figuring things out”, and that the answers to my questions “should be obvious.” As I’m still in my probationary period, this is very concerning to me and I’m really worried about losing my job.

How can I professionally communicate these issues to her without sounding incompetent or defensive? I’ve already asked if we can put more action points and project updates in writing, but she just told me that she prefers verbal communication because it takes less time 😅