You did the right thing!!! You have to stand up for yourself and your principles. Congrats on the speaking engagements. Those are chances you can NOT pass up!!! Best of luck! :D

good for you!! hope the speaking engagements go well and that you make many contacts that can further your career.

Good for you. Everything happens for a reason. :)

Best wishes and good luck from the Aussie GLBTI community, hun. I hope that the speeches and everything after them goes well for you. After you have done them, can you post a copy of the lectures you are giving up on here, as I'd really like to read them and I'm sure that it would help any other member of the forums that might be GLBTI.

Best of luck and *hugs*.

Congratulations! Much success to you with your future endeavors. :)

that's awesome! good for you!

HELLL YEAH HELL YEAH HEEELLLLLLYEAAAHHH!!!

Don't let them grind you down, stand tall!! You were basically doing them a favor by working there anyway.

Congratulations.

You, by your own admission, failed to request time off well enough in advance to attend this event.

Your boss at least gave you something and your response was to decide that it was not good enough and he didn't know what he was doing anyway by not letting you just take off this time on short notice.

And so you quit without 2 weeks notice- and from a damned important job at that.

Some principles my friend. And good luck getting references when you go looking for another job and need them. I still sometimes tap into references from jobs I had many years ago- and I own my own company now! You never know when you might need to cross an old bridge again- and you just burned one big time.

Someone said just above, "You were basically doing them a favor by working there anyway."

I have spent many hours volunteering at Boy's Club in two cities during my college and post-college career. Quite frankly, these places are full of volunteer and employees (working at all the salary such programs can afford)
who think they are "doing the kids a favor by working there anyway."

Anyone with that attitude is best to never bother volunteering in the first place. These kids need people who care and will show up.

People who show up and work for a few weeks or months and then just leave do more harm than good.

Talk yourself all you want into thinking that you made a lasting difference in 6 months when everyone you work with has now seen you just take off for a very pitiful reason.

The lecture series you are embarking on is certainly a noble goal, but if you really cared about it and were a principled man, then why didn't you give 2 weeks notice and then start lecturing- or accept the one day off and then drive all night to manage everything?

Put it another way- if the organizations you are lecturing for were to find out what you just did, do you think they would still want you to represent them with a public speech?

You raise some interesting points.

First I would like to say that I am probably receiving a lot of support in this thread because I've been part of GC for so long. These people remember before I was an Alpha, celebrated my initiation into Alpha with me, remember my struggle to become published, celebrated my novel with me, and have met me when my work as an author brought me to their various towns and cities.

Simply put, I was an author before I was a Site Director. When I was hired, they knew that I was an author and had already traveled to various schools, pride celebrations, book clubs, etc. When asked in my interview how I would balance the two, I said that I would do so fairly and equitably and be flexible -- as I have been for the past six months.

For six months, I've been too tired to write and unable to promote my work or accept speaking engagements unless they were on the weekend. This is the first time I asked for time off during the week.

This is my reality -- there is no need for you to check it.

My job is important -- but my site is so well oiled that it will be fine without me because I have laid out a structure for my employees to follow. They are highly qualified, highly motivated college students who have had intensive training. My abscence does not harm them.

I had not admitted that the leave request wasn't submitted "on time" -- I have admitted that I could have submitted it earlier. My office does not have a policy about what is considered "on time."

You don't seem to understand the nature of the work I am doing. I think another reason for the support of my decision in this thread is because people on GC know how I live my life -- they have seen my own fraternity brothers turn their backs on me because of my sexual orientation. For them, seeing me take a stand such as this to go to a completely different environment and speak about my experiences means something.

It's not about "being in the spotlight" -- it's about making a difference, being an activist. The themes of my novel also directly relate to fraternity and sorority life in many ways. Just ask anyone on GC who has read it. I say "treating me like a celebrity" not because I am star struck or drunk with fame -- far from it. I say it because of the irony of being celebrated for being who you are in a completely different venue than the place that should be treating you that way.

The bottom line is that you really don't know me. You don't know my job. You don't know whether I've made a difference or not.

But I know me. I know my job. And I know that I've made a difference when my coworkers have told me that I empowered them to speak their minds when previously they were silent; when parents tell me that I've created a quality program for their children that didn't previously exist; when my employees thank me for going above and beyond for them; when teachers let me know that they appreciate the structure and discipline I provide.

If you're interested in the job, email me your resume and I'll be sure to put in a good word.

I really wish you hadn't edited your post, because now my response seems disjointed.

I didn't say he was doing the kids a favor, he was doing his boss, etc. a favor by putting up with their crap. Yeah sometimes work is great, and sometimes you run into entire offices full of asshats

Congrats on the speaking engagements and for following your heart, dude. :)

Everyone is giving you congratz, but you basically called yourself a quitter...
You failed to tell us if you had a back up job?
Unless your balling like that. I don't know many people who are, cause U.S. Capitalism is a mother...
Rather then congratulate you my NPHC brother, I pray for you. Pray that you don't face finacial hardship and find something that you like.

In regards to the last few posts before this one:

EE-BO, thats a bit uncalled for what you just said. None of us except for Senusret really know what was going on in that workplace and I dare say that the workplace conditions there would have to be interesting at the very least for him to want to get out of there so quickly. Some people just don't gel well with some of the other people in their workplace on occasion and quite often they will decide to move on in order to keep their own mental well-being up. If this is the case, well that bridge was already burned well before this incident, even if he did have a good working relationship with most of his other colleagues.

Also who are we to lecture this guy about principals? I think that you just broke one just then, which is "don't judge, unless ye thee-self be judged". I'm not going to comment on your opinion about community service organisations and institutions, though I am curious as to what your opinion is on teachers, considering they work in the most important community service of them all, yet are paid to do it.

As for the stuff about representation of different groups considering hes quit his job, putting it bluntly, I doubt those organisations would even care considering similar situations I have witnessed in the past when I've helped organise events for my university. It shouldn't be theirs or our business either way though, and would be like if I asked you for your financial details even though I had no financial activities with your business.
If however he does decide to go for a similar position, considering the other ways that any future employer would be able to enquire about his previous preformance in that job, I hardly think that a single potentially problematic reference would be as major a problem as you suggest, esspecially if he explained the situation truthfully and in detail.

Also Senusret, I can see what you mean about a lot of people here being GLBTI friendly. I'm sure a lot of you remember the post I made a few months ago asking if anyone knew of any service sororities that accept transgendered folk like myself. Since then I've been absolutely amazed by the help that I've received and friendly attitudes, esspecially from people such as Tom, Cutiepie, basically the rest of the mods, Dionysus, PSUSigKap and the OPA service-sorority girls that I have been talking to, which are MaryAmanda and Ginger, just to name a few of the wonderful people here that I have met.


Follow your heart and you will find the way that suits you best, hun.

Congrats on the speaking engagement!!
I wish you the best and hope that by following your heart and your principles you achieve success!!
Quitting your job to follow your dreams takes alot of courage and is to be admired!