So I got fired as a volunteer at the Office of Presidential Correspondence last night and I receive this email today:

I hope everyone had a fantastic week. Please join us tonight for our usual Thursday night mail session. As usual, if you will attend please RSVP.

Thank you in advance!

My response:

Since you’ve fired me as a volunteer, please take me off your distribution list.

This email notification is just another reminder of the unfairness of your decision.

This firing was especially upsetting to me as it was on the same day that President Obama’s attorney general dropped the charges on Sen. Stevens of Alaska and I watched Ed Schultz plugging his new show on Countdown last night say “how *fair* the Obama administration is.” I agree. It just seems that President Obama’s underlings haven’t gotten the memo.

One strike and I was out! before I was even told the rules of the game I was playing by the same office that fired me as a volunteer.

Their response:

This email was sent by my coworker and she was working off of a spreadsheet of volunteers. I apologize for the oversight.

[JillSusan’s Note: Wonder if this coworker will get fired after her one mistake, like me.]

I’m sorry that you feel our decision was unfair. But the things that you said in your posting were inappropriate. Having posted them without checking to see if it was ok to do so is one thing; having said the things that you said are quite another. We are very serious about our work here, and segments of your post were inappropriate, offensive and damaging. Had it been a minor offense it would be another story; but it was not.

Again, I apologize that you received this email in error.

[JillSusan’s Note: If you’re curious as to the “damaging” things I wrote, send me an email and I’ll send you the login password to the 2 posts in question, and you can judge for yourself and tell me where I’m wrong here.]

My response:

Again, I’m being held to a higher standard than even a Senator of the US. He was indicted and President Obama elected to drop the charges. Because of the lack of training and you and your staff not passing on the rules to the volunteer group, I’m being punished for something that I did not even know in advance was wrong. I corrected the situation as soon as it was pointed out to me but that doesn’t seem to matter to you.

I’m very serious about my volunteer work with President Obama too. I’ve been working with his campaign for over 3 years now. And now that I see how his staff treats volunteers, I feel it’s my duty to inform others just how lightly they need to tread. One strike and you are out!

Are you going to fire the lady sitting next to me who answered the comment line after President Obama’s press conference that agreed with the positive comments of the callers and expressed her own opinions to the callers? In her defense, the only training we got before we were placed on calls is how the phones worked. If I hadn’t happened to see a sheet that relayed some of the rules, I wouldn’t have known that that was inappropriate.

During the course of the campaign, President Obama used technology (blogs, Facebook) extensively. I guess I was supposed to intuitively know that it was OK for him and not for me.

I’ve never posted anything other than positive things about my experiences with the Obama campaign. I’ve recruited additional volunteers because of my experiences in my posts. But again, sadly, I feel like it’s my responsiblity to let people know that volunteers are now in peril and to beware.

I know your mind is made up. I know I have no recourse. I’m very sad about your decision. President Obama deserves better than a staff that treats volunteers the way that I have been treated. I continue to support him totally! And you won’t hear from me again about this.