The Human Resources Files: She got Fired from a Volunteer Job

Full Disclosure: While names and locations have been changed, these stories are depressingly and hilariously true.

You would think that it would be virtually impossible to get fired from a volunteer job. The very nature of volunteering, not getting paid, would seem to negate that possibility. It doesn’t make sense that a person would be fired from a volunteer position.

But I know someone who did: Lisa J.

Aid for the Homeless is an outreach program based in New York City. At seven o’clock every night volunteers load up into three vans which leave from St. Peter’s Church at 53rd and Park Avenue. Each van makes designated stops where the volunteers hand out soup, sandwiches, milk, fruit and sometimes clothing. One van goes uptown as far as 150th Street in East Harlem; another van goes downtown as far as South Street Seaport and the third van does a route in the Bronx. Many of the clients know the stops and will already be there when the van arrives. It is a simple and effective system.

Most people who come to volunteer are the generous and amiable types. It was enjoyable to ride in the van and chat about current events and make fun of the Eighties at Eight songs which played on the radio every Friday night. There was a core group of about six of us who came just about every Friday and, after finishing, we would often have dinner and drinks at a place called The Half Pint on the Upper West Side. Any newcomers were always invited to join us.

On a rare occasion, there had been a volunteer who was a dud. I remember one woman who seemed to make it a point to be unpleasant. She had a very negative attitude and didn’t even seem to want to be there (which made me wonder why she was). One time, she mentioned some public official and when I asked who he was, she pretty much called me stupid for not knowing. One night, she demanded to go in the uptown van and when she was told that it was full she said something rather snotty to the coordinator and quit. Apparently, if she was going to volunteer it was going to be on her terms.

However, Lisa J really took the prize. In hindsight, there were warning signs from the get go. The first night she came with us to The Half Pint was a big red flag. At first, she was very nice and gregarious. By the time we got to the restaurant she had already exchanged phone numbers with me, Lance (who faithfully coordinated the Wednesday and Friday night volunteers), a girl named Corrine and a few others. However, at some point during dinner, she started telling us about the breakdown of her third marriage, which was still in the process of divorce. This led her to telling us about her first two marriages, one of which ended when her husband came out of the closet on the night of their wedding. The old story.

Inevitably, she started crying. Mind you, we had all just met her and she was pouring her heart out right on to the table. Everyone was trying to be nice and sympathetic but it was really uncomfortable; too much too soon kind of thing. A tale like hers is best suited for late night at the bar with the girls, not at a well lighted table with a bunch of relative strangers. However, the best was yet to come.

Lance had somehow discovered that it was her birthday (I guess she told him) and he, being the kind-hearted person that he is, had called ahead to The Half Pint to arrange for them to bring out a little cake for Lisa. The timing was worthy of a Woody Allen movie. Just as Lisa was hitting the climax of her weeping, the server came out with it, candles and everything. We all had to join in singing the most painful rendition of Happy Birthday ever while she sat there blubbering over the ruins of her marriage.

God it was funny.

And that was just the intro. Things went downhill pretty rapidly from there. Lisa had the fatal flaw of becoming way too intimate with people way too fast. I consider certain people from Aid for the Homeless to be close friends and we socialized apart from volunteering, but those relationships took time to develop organically. Lisa had the mentality of a stalker. She was a case in point for why it is important to take a relationship, even a friendship, slowly.

She was soon calling people every day, numerous times a day. She would call Lance at work repeatedly about nothing. I was freelancing at the time and she would call my cell phone and my landline, alternating throughout the day. After a few times, I just stopped answering. Lance had to tell her to stop calling him because his manager was getting pissed. She put Corrine’s photo (who was seventeen at the time)on a dating sight without her knowledge, discussed her medical issues and sex life way too openly and a host of other creepy things. She really did not seem to understand any sort of boundaries.

The reason Lisa had time for all of this was that she didn’t work; she hadn’t worked in ten years. According to her, she had had some high flying job but quit because of a nervous breakdown. Despite this, she lived in an apartment in Chelsea that must have been worth over two millions dollars, paid for by her parents. I assume they also paid for her therapist, whom she saw twice a week. Those of us who knew her felt that she should have been in therapy eight hours a day, seven days a week. Obviously two times a week was not enough.

After a rather short period of time, maybe a month, everyone had a story about her. The tipping point seemed to come when she began saying negative things about a volunteer named David who was a recovering addict. He’d had a rough childhood which had led to drugs and crime and eventually time in prison. David was open about his life but never complained. He worked at a construction job, did his volunteer work and was in the process of going to school to get his licence as a drug counselor. A genuine success story.

For no reason at all, Lisa would say, “David is going to relapse. That’s the way addicts are.” That really turned people off from her. Everyone liked and admired David. Despite long odds, he was doing well, making himself into a productive citizen, apparently with little support from his family. Lisa had every advantage and did nothing expect wallow in self pity and bother everyone else. It created a lot of resentment.

No one wanted to volunteer with her and hear her moaning anymore so Lance had to fire her. He sent her an email telling her that her comments and behavior were upsetting people and that she was creating a toxic environment and it would be better if she didn’t come anymore. She fired back a message blaming all of us. In her world, she did no wrong.

Volunteering is an uplifting experience. We all enjoyed spending Friday nights with each other and doing something worthwhile. Why Lisa would try to ruin that baffles me. Why she couldn’t just show up and hand out the food to the clients without creating tension and strife, I do not know. Maybe she needed attention. Maybe everyone else in her life was sick and tired of listening to her and she needed new ears.

She must be a gold mine to her therapist.