Volunteer refuses to come back after being bossed around, given no water, no bathroom breaks, and nearly having her phone confiscated, gets emails a year later telling her she needs to be a better team player – FAIL Blog

And the phone thing. Someone decided that a grown adult checking a message from a friend asking if she needed water was a disciplinary situation requiring confiscation. The audacity required to hold your hand out and demand a stranger’s phone because they briefly looked at it is genuinely impressive. That is a level of self-importance that takes years to cultivate.

The best part of this whole dynamic is the follow-up email. Not an apology, not acknowledgment that the arrangement was unreasonable, just a breezy “there seems to have been a misunderstanding” and a new job assignment for August. Organizations that run on volunteer labor have a stunning ability to confuse “you were nice enough to help us once” with “you are now legally ours.”

The correct response to being told you are not a member and will not be returning is not to send a third email about showing up on time. It just is not.