Quote from Emily on October 28, 2023, 7:39 pm

I've been volunteering for a non-profit as treasurer and board member for a few months now but I have felt something clashing between me and the director of the organization. Sometimes I feel it's ridiculous that I'm a board member,  volunteering my free time but treated like a gofer. This goes into the inherent hierarchy at the workplace (although this is not work, and I hate the pecking order that she establishes). I am feeling uncomfortable about a few of her behaviors:

1. There is just a lot of menial tasks that are related to other aspects of operations (such as HR management, definitely not finances) and she assumes that I should take it on since that's what the previous treasurer was doing (which I think was just unhealthy)
2. Asking questions that seem like doubting my work quality or simply distrustful - for example, asking about a single expense item - "Wow I didn't know that is this expensive, are you sure?" (I feel this is slightly questioning my ability to check records myself)
3. Asking me to wait for her to check things before I assign categories of spending - which is a mind-boggling experience to me as I feel the categorization is pretty arbitrary (read: to her liking). I  feel it's a waste of time since my categorization needs to be corrected eventually every time, maybe I shouldn't even start that process, and she should be doing it
4. Sending me multiple emails during the week which I have no capacity to answer and saying "I saw this, have you done it yet?"

I've tried to resolve this conflict before saying that I am a working professional and have no capacity to answer things during the week and she agreed that it's fine I work on my schedule (mostly weekends), but I feel she still sends messages during a week with a tone of urgency ("have you done this" type of thing). I do like this organization and its mission but I want to be treated with respect, I am not a worker and definitely not her subordinate. I also feel that her decision-making process is a bit authoritarian and not elaborated enough with the board. We will have a meeting soon and there would be a review session of her performance from other board members. I think I need to be assertive and clear about how I feel. Here is what I am gonna do:

1. Laying out exactly I will do and think is within the scope of treasurer responsibilities, and push other operational tasks to her and other people in operations (I'll also try to be a bit sneaky to distant myself from the tasks that she would be checking personally regularly)
2. Starting to ask questions about her decision-making more explicitly in the board meeting and ask all members from the board to chime in (this could be a bit confrontational but I want this to be transparent, as she doesn't ask anybody herself)
3. During the reviewing session assert exactly how I feel in this process - what behaviors are respecting my boundaries and what are not, and inform the board that I will step down if this continues to happen (this is also a bit severe, but some of the urgent messages from her are really affecting me)

To be frank I feel she's a bit narcissistic, and this could be a break point for me to volunteer for this org for long, but I am willing to see what can be done and if I will have support from the board. What do you guys think? Are the above steps good to address the current situation? I appreciate your honest opinions.