“and I heard you had a huge falling out because he was such an ass to work with”

oh, that part is so baad.
like, he rehired me after I had had a break because I was too sick to work (my grandmother died and post degree burnout). For one month. I wrote a fucking job description, that definitely expanded for more than 1 month. He didn't tell me that no, I intend it to be only 1 month, rewrite please. He was hiring me back, to quiet some loud people down. (turns out). then he ghosted me until I made like a public call out. 🤣 because I thought we were still NEGOTIATING and renegotiating my terms after that 1 month. Nope.

“He wanted to use you to grant respectability to quiet things for a bit?”

Yeh, exactly that. every time I try to write about it properly, like you know article wiseI just completely get triggered and physically ill. I wrote a fucking loveletter to the community, like 'I'm back and I have so many plans'
he could've told me then, right, like any normal human would've [when there’s a misunderstanding]. he keeps insisting that No the 1 month was in the contract. Which is true, because he said "let's start like last time with just one month" START.
Not, let me only hire you for 1 month and nothing more.
Because I called him out, when he was ghosting me, my reputation is "tarnished" for the blowout about it... 🤣
so I can't "safely" critique him... so to speak. That’s why I often freak out when there’s stuff I want to help share info about. Because... like. I’m going to risk projects i’m working on now.
And, You know? Like he's pretty good when you're in his good graces.
but... critique? pfft.

I've been trying to work on my tell all of the experience, add all the resources from all the other people around it.

Like I got hired off the back of this article, Mourning Mastodon:
https://medium.com/@alliethehart/gameingers-are-dead-and-so-is-mastodon-705b535ed616

Eugen was scrambling to get his reputation back, as the discord was OVERWHELMED with conversations from all of us who were there, about how we needed to improve, and change things.
We decided on 4 roles that needed to be filled, One of them was project manager. I ended up getting that role.
None of the other roles were ever properly filled, and no attempts were made to actually build up an organisation that could afford to hire those positions full time.

In my role as project manager, I ended up more of a catch all for Community Management and PR, and the project management was kind of on the sidelines, since he called all the development shots. I was hoping, as already mentioned,to be able to be a conduit between him and non.-tech people, to get things they needed.

Any time a project plan was put forward infront of him, that was developed together with other dedicated community members and contributors to the project, to make things eaiser for everyone, like on GitHub etc, he'd shoot it down with "it's quicker and eaiser if I just sit down for 2 days and do this myself, instead of paying this person to do it". I was forced to deliver the message to the person we had a deep conversation with about these improvements. I was gutted, I wanted to hire them, I was sure we would. It was denied.

The thing was, the project had a decent chunk of money, but Gargron always had this debilitating fear that the money would run oput if people stoppedd contributing money to it, which is valid, but never seemed to think ahead to plan to afford to pay for people, including taxes etc, to be able to hire these people we'd decided upon. There was no foresight.

We discussed the non-profit stuff back in 2017, as the community collectively contributing to the development and direction and safety, to create a legacy in case something happend to Eugen, you know the "in case you get hit by a bus" plans. I was trying to help with starting that the entire summer after I was hired. It went no where. It became more and more clear that the community wasn't a concern, but that didn't really stop me from trying.

When he finally made a Non-profit for the Mastodon Project, long after I wasn't working with him anymore, he became the sole founder and member. As far as I know, this hasn't changed. So, it's only for himself again.

You might wonder why any of this would be traumatic. And isolation it probably wouldn't be, but considering I was pre-diagnosis with 3 pain-conditions, hypothyroidism, adhd and autism, a family member had died, and I was working even though I was also recovering from a burnout which had left me unable to communicate properly most of 2016 AND severe memory loss, there were a lot of factors that contributed to it.

I'd kick off the morning working on mastodon with memes about dumpsters and fires, and putting out fires. I was in the middle of the fire and just  sipping my coffee and trying to do the best. I was still supposed to be on part time sickleave, but I was definitely riding a high of how the Mastodon project was exciting to me, something new and fresh, and I could see the future possibilities.

So I don't blame any of the CPTSD related to this on Eugen, or him being abusive towards me. I don't. At least not in 2017. But considering the entire circumstances, talking about it does trigger my fight or flight response, and often makes me physically ill.

I don't know why I'm not right now. Maybe it's because there's "less pressure" writing it here, than trying to write about it as an article to publish. so I'm just going to keep writing, until I feel a tingling of feeling ill.