"Thank you for your service." NOT!

Non-profit work can be thankless.

It deals with some of the hardest problems in a community. The pay is low, the work is hard. People second guess you. They tell you to do more with less. When problems emerge, they blame you for not having the resources to fix them.

And they kick you when you are down.

Praised.

Yesterday's blog post reported the praise former employees of OnTrack had for long time Executive Director Rita Sullivan. It was an easy post to write. Lots of people came forward to say Dr. Sullivan was professional, passionate about her work, motivating to staff, an inspiration, and a great boss.

I expected some criticism of Dr. Sullivan and OnTrack generally. Nonprofit organizations deal with the most difficult people and situations in a community. OnTrack dealt with drug and alcohol addiction. The clients are people at the lowest ebb in their lives: in addiction, usually in poverty, frequently with family relationships in tatters, in legal trouble. These are mothers so addicted that they used drugs during pregnancy and gave birth to a baby who was born addicted. Many of their clients are there essentially involuntarily, sentenced to OnTrack programs as a diversion from jail.

The work is hard and unglamorous. Someone has the job of watching urine samples be produced. Someone must physically watch the urine stream, to secure against phony samples. Some clients are violent. Some are abusive. 

It is frustrating work. Clients who successfully got through the program return, in relapse. Relapse is not an exception, it is the rule.  (How is your diet going? Did you gain back any of the weight?)

People would work at OnTrack, then leave for a better job.  Moving from OnTrack to a job at a school district, the county, or the state meant a promotion. Better pay, easier work, much better conditions, and PERS. There would be lots of reasons for employees to dislike Dr. Sullivan, to be happy for the job but unhappy that the job was a miserable one, and blame her. Didn't she know the job sucked and the pay was below market?

Yes, of course she knew. 

But the job is inherently difficult, made worse by the fact that the job was much bigger than the resources available. Everyone was more or less overworked and underpaid. Dr. Sullivan was inspiring and communicated a message of service to the needs of the client, but, still, in the everyday work of the job, it is a hard one.

Some jobs are like that.

The employees who came forward to praise Rita Sullivan saw something other than the frustrations of a hard job. They saw someone inspiring who worked hard to share the value of the mission. We are serving people who need us. We are doing good, important work.

Thad Guyer wrote a comment in yesterday's post that I am repeating here as a Guest Post. He addresses the difficulties of the work OnTrack performed.

Guest Post, by Thad Guyer

Thad Guyer

"Rita Sullivan is a Community Hero"

I worked with, for and near Rita Sullivan for 30 years. If you want to see a trailblazing woman hero, it's Rita. The tragedy of this conflict between her and OnTrack is the demonstration of how little it takes to cast a hero aside. Was Rita tried in court and found in the wrong? No, there has been no trial. Was Rita found to have used her power and position to aggrandize herself or her friends? No, there is no dispute about her unwavering dedication and selflessly giving 100% of herself to the cause of public health. Instead, she is accused of verbal abusive of some employees, and not always having the resources to immediately maintain the non-profit's facilities and residences. Were these employees minorities or disadvantaged groups? Nope, if Rita raises her voice to an employee, a vendor or a contractor, it is never based on race, religion, disability, gender, national origin or sexual preference. It is always based on performance, timely work product, dedication to organizational mission, or loyalty to clients and patients.

Rita's work life at OnTrack was one of struggling to chase too few dollars to serve an exploding population of victims, addicts and their suffering children in the opioid surge sweeping the country. Few of us can even imagine the high pressure, frustration and heartbreak of trying to save as many victims as she could. You know what the biggest problem in keeping a happy staff at OnTrack has been and always will be? Low pay and giant work loads for the case-handlers and caretakers. Places like OnTrack will always be stressful pressure cookers, overcrowded and underfunded, even triage operations in who can be saved. Working there has never been easy, and pleasant tones with sweet words aren't universally expected. Yes, clients and patients should never be ordered around with a coarse voice, and Rita has never been accused of doing that. But staff members who can't handle pressure and barked orders when the organizational realities are closing in from time to time, well frankly, they shouldn't be working at OnTrack.

Employees have a well articulated set of rights in the workplace that must be honored. Freedom from racial or sexual harassment, protection of wage and hour laws, and immunity for reporting violation of safety or regulations, these must be respected. But as to generic "harassment" or raised voices of a supervisor, the law is clear that an employee has no legal claim over that unless it is pervasive and severe. No board of directors for a non-profit should ever put the interests of complaining employees above the needs of the community's most vulnerable members who need treatment, counseling and housing to overcome life threatening addictions.  

The sad truth about OnTrack is that no one could have protected its clients and patients as well as Dr. Rita Sullivan. OnTrack might indeed achieve a more touchy-feelie workplace without Rita, but it will have been at the expense of public health and our community.