Now this is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down...

Okay, so my story is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air lyrics but this job certainly flipped things around. My mom works for this organization (no names to have some privacy preserved) and they had a communications manager. Over the weeks, we arranged it so that I would complete my two month practicum there, with the manager as my mentor.

Well, the Friday before I went into my last week of school (also finals week, unfortunately) the manager quit. I was totally panicked but then reassured by the executive director that I would still get guidance and that I would still get many learning opportunities. I should have left after the first week...I was told there would be things on my desk that I could get started on right away, there weren't. The communications manager had mentally checked out and was more concerned with taking his stuff home than actually training me for anything.

After he left, it was worse. I only had a few projects to work on and my days were mostly filled with trying to entertain myself at the same time as trying to look busy (so I didn't get in trouble for looking at Hotmail, Facebook, and Perez Hilton). Close to the end of my practicum, I found another position that I thought looked promising and applied for it. We agreed that I would take a week to sort out this new position, or come back for the rest of the summer, at which point we'd talk about my "future" again. Well, the great job fell through, and so begrudgingly I returned for the next two months.

It was like a ghost town for projects, tumbleweeds were collecting in my office. Every time I initiated anything, I was shot down or in trouble because I didn't do it right. However, the only feedback I got was negative and I never got guidance in the first place. So finally, two weeks ago, I decided to leave. I wrote a letter for the executive director, stating that I would be leaving when my contract was up on August 29. She barely read it and didn't display any real reaction. With every other job, when giving my notice, I always got the "oooohhh, that's too bad. We'll miss you, you were great, etc. etc." but with her it was nothing. Her lack of reaction basically reaffirmed my determination to leave, even though I have no other job lined up.