This is more of a vent than a question. I’ve come to realize I need to start looking for a new job, which I hate doing. I was promoted about a year ago and I really enjoy the work, but my coworker was given supervisory authority over my new position and they’re, frankly, really bad at it. I don’t think they’ve ever supervised anyone before, and it shows. I had a 6 month check in and they spent the entire time bringing up negative things. I said it sounded like they didn’t have anything positive to say, and they just kind of shrugged, but when I said, “ok, so it sounds like I need to look for another job?” they acted like that was an unreasonable takeaway. I pointed out that a ton of the things they were bringing up happened months earlier and it would’ve been helpful to hear about issues at the time so I could take action. They agreed to give more timely feedback.
Fast forward to now, we have another 6 month check in. Once again, they had notes about things that happened months ago AND, this time, were demonstrably false. Apparently my coworker said I’d done something I hadn’t (over the summer) and instead of approaching me about it then, my supervisor waited until now to say, “so and so told me ____, I’m really disappointed in you.” I had documentation that the story was false, and would’ve been fine if they weren’t treating it as the gospel truth without even asking me about it. Then I was told that I did a couple of (relatively minor) things wrong with my supervisor admitting they’d never actually told me about those things beforehand but still pretty heavily blaming me for not being a mindreader, I guess? At the end of a pretty negative meeting, they made a comment about how they learned they still have to give feedback to employees who are overall doing well, with the implication that I’m one of them. It was total whiplash.
Anyway, I’m doing my job well – there are objective standards and everything I’m doing is correct, done quickly, and my relationships with customers are fantastic (I know because many of them have said so). I know I’m not perfect, but I can’t work with a manager who thinks the only feedback they need to provide is when there’s something wrong. I also don’t particularly want to work with someone who will lie about me.
Unfortunately, a lot of what’s available is the next step up from where I’m at and requires more specific program knowledge than I have. I need some lateral jobs to open up, dang it. I was approached by someone I’d interviewed with to see if I was interested in another opening they had, but it wasn’t a good fit, unfortunately. I may need to strap in for the long haul on this one.
