. . . to quit my job without another one to go to?

[Toska]

I've named changed as my old manager is on here and sorry posting here because I feel like I'm going to explode at my desk.

Last year my manager was changed. This was announced to my via an email to the entire company (around 500 people, across six countries), I had worked there for just over a year. My new manager is based in America, I'm in the UK. No-one had the decency to tell me first.

I really detest my new manager. I hate this job and the way that the change in manager was handling left a really bad taste in my mouth. She is a first time manager. I will be copied into an email to her where someone asks her to send back an attachment. She will respond to both me and the sender saying 'Toska would you mind sending this on?'.

As she is new to our team she needed to introduce herself to our clients. She didn't. So essentially I get emails meant for her but as I'm not allowed to give out her email address or name they come to me. I regularly have to deal with an abusive client that she is still 'composing an email for'. This is an acceptable excuse for her manager.

Unfortunately, manager's are in charge of targets. She asked my what I thought my target would be. I said 30. She submitted a target of 60 to senior management. This target is what they use to deny people at my level promotions. Generally this is fine as I don't want to work here.

I had a miscarriage at the end of January and was signed off for two weeks. I came back to loads of 'Toska will send this when she's back' emails etc. She also refuses to do anything she thinks is below her payscale. She emailed my personal email address with the obligatory 'I hope you're OK, you can always talk to me' and ended with 'if you feel up to it you can check your work emails and forward me X'. X is the only criteria she is judged on for her yearly bonus.

She has just emailed me having returned from her holiday asking why the spreadsheet that directly affects her bonuses has not been updated. I returned to three hundred emails last week and am training new staff as the stupid company has a retention problem and still doing my main duty. (I'm not being intentionally vague, it just would be very obvious if I name it).

I have been on antidepressants for years. Whilst I was miscarrying the baby that took us two years to conceive all I could think about was having to go back to this job.

DH and I earn about £3000 a month between us. I take home £1400. Our mortgage alone is £900 but my train fare to work is £300. DH says I can quit. I hate this job. I have just started to apply for other jobs and have spoken to another manager about an internal position that has just come up. DH has been applying for other jobs for the last year and has a lot more further education that I have.

Would I be unreasonable to just quit this job?

[SanitysSake]

Oh Toska. My sympathies are with you for your loss and your current position. x

You know what? If it were me and this is a big enough company, I'd get a doctor to sign me off sick with stress and in that time, contact occupational health and file a formal complaint for bullying and harassment. I would also have a look into whether her behaviours fit the criteria for constructive dismissal.

Without further specifics, I smell the treatment you have received does indeed fall into the above three categories. If you're going to resign anyway - there's nothing to lose - UNLESS - your field is a very closed shop and the 'stain' (which often occurs with these kinds of things) would stay with you and prevent you from getting other employment in the same field in the future. It's a tough call that one.

You should have the right to complain and it not be held against you.. but through experience that is not always the case...

However, if you're wanting a complete change of career and feel strongly enough (which I would, given what you've been through), I'd be quietly putting a case file together of everything thats happened since the change of management. I'd also be printing off every email that relates to these issues too!

Time to get your ducks in order!

Best of luck x

[MissHooliesclassmonitor]

No I dont think it is unreasonable to leave if you dont think you can go above her head and get help, it sounds like it impacting on your life way too much. No job is worth that. Just make sure you do it an unemotionally as possible so the decision isn't made on emotion {easier said than done I know) but dont burn your bridges x

[SanitysSake]

PS - If you want to carry on working - just not underneath the new manager, still put your case file together and ask for a compassionate transfer. Couch it in the terms of better to redeploy experienced and willing staff than to lose that expertise from the business altogether because of bad management practices.

That would be a hard argument for them to turn down - particularly if you're good and could prove the bullying, harassment and the constructive dismissal elements. x

[DJBaggySmalls]

If you cant change things for the better where you are (thats shameful) and you dont need to claim benefits, do so for your own health before you snap and are fired.
Good luck job for the future.

www.officeguns.com/

[Toska]

Thank you all.

I just feel so guilty heaping all that stress on to DH. His salary would just about cover out outgoings and we would have to watch how we spent and neither of us is very good at budgeting. I'm worried I'll never get another job. I'm worried we'll lose the house. I'm worried well be homeless.

I've saved all the emails. I think she may just be incompetent rather than nasty but I don't know who her so and have skewed judgement so I'm probably wrong.

We have around £3000 that we had saved for baby things. I could top up DHs salary from this. I just feel so guilty.

[MatildaTheCat]

My only slight concern would be that if you leave for a new company you will lose entitlement to maternity leave for some time. If at all possible I would be seeking an internal post.

She sounds bad at her job. Don't cover for her and do the job you are employed to do. Speak to HR if she is being difficult.

[SanitysSake]

Do you have occupational health in your organisation? If so - go to them.

[m0therofdragons]

Other than the target thing I don't get what manager has done that's so bad
I regularly get emails from my dept director asking me to send something and I've always assumed it's because he is a higher pay scale he also has additional work I may not be privy to is busy and not immediately sure where a file is or needs to go into a meeting at that second. If her manager is ok with angry client waiting then you don't need to stress just forward angry emails to manager.
I would look for a job while still in work for financial reasons but also because people notice gaps in employment and steer clear of difficult employees even though it's not your fault a future manager may not risk it.

[Toska]

Yes, I stayed in this job because of the maternity pay and now I just feel stupid for hanging around. Had I known that they would change my manager I would have started applying for jobs in August. We may not get pregnant again as we were up for IVF. I have decided I can't go through with it.

I'm not sure if we have occupational health. Our HR department is pretty toothless.

We all have access to the same folders. I have a two week old email asking for a copy of a contract. She responded to them saying that I will send it when I returned from sick leave. It is done to assert her authority. As she won't email any clients they don't have her email address to send her angry emails. It's seen as completely fine that she picks and chooses who to email.

Also my colleagues at my level are lovely and we've kept each other going. But they are all planning to leave. One sits at her desk applying for jobs all day openly. We've all been trying to leave for half a year now but I was hoping to get pregnant so was only half heartedly applying for jobs. If they leave I don't know what I will do.

DH left a job he hated a few years ago and was unemployed for three months. But we were renting then and he has a PhD. I just want to feel like I can leave.

[bettytaghetti]

Sorry OP that you're having to deal with a shitty boss along with everything else you've gone through recently.
My only advice is that it is much easier to get a job when you are in one already than if you quit first. An extra £1100 a month coming in is not to be sneezed at, especially if you do go for IVF.
Hopefully she'll be found out for being utterly hopeless soon. Do you have 360 reviews in your company?

[Toska]

Thank you betty. The IVF was supposed to be on the NHS when had been trying to get the referral since April later year.

I've never been unemployed and I'm very worried about it but I couldn't get to sleep until 12 and I was awake at 4am. I absolutely detest this woman. Sadly we don't have 360 reviews. As long as she meets her target, which is very low, they don't care what she does. We have a manager who is supposed to be once a week. She turns up once every three months but has always achieved 135% of her targets. She's already met this year's target and it's been two months.

[BabyHamster]

She wouldn't be my ideal boss for sure. But like a PP, I'm afraid I'm also struggling to see what she has done that is SO bad . From what you've said I really don't think you'd have a case for bullying and harrassment and wouldn't recommend you go down that route as it could be very frustrating.

As a PP said, stop dealing with the aggressive client and just forward all the emails to your manager with her manager copied in if necessary.

I'm very sorry to hear about your miscarriage though and if work is making you so upset and stressed and you can afford to leave, I think it's a no brainer. Resign and find something better.

[KeyserSophie]

Tbh she doesnt sound the best manager, but certainly not that terrible either. Having a remote boss in a different time zone is challenging (although also quite nice - be careful what you wish for!). I've worked on an 8 hr difference to my boss for 6 years and we do have to be mindful of the challenges.

That said

The change in reporting lines without direct report consultation is pretty common in largeish companies - avoids the news leaking out, and is important if any of the (usually multiple) changes are due to "x leaving the company to spend more time with their family". I've had overnight manager changes a few times. It's always an adjustment.

Similarly, my boss will quite often say "sophie, please revert" if she feels that it's something I should be dealing with rather than her. I also wonder if your new manager has been told she needs to be more hands-off than previous manager, especially given she's not in the same country.

Re targets, yeah, we dont get to set our own targets either. Sucks, but there you go. However, she should have explained how the target was set- i.e. are their top down targets that need to be met by bottom up personal targets and if there's a gap it just gets spread around?

Anyway, fact is you hate your job so just apply for other jobs and then quit when you get a new one. Dont do the "hang on for mat leave " thing. It really screws with your head and adds extra pressure when every month is another month in the job from hell.

[KeyserSophie]

"are there top down" ........ The shame

[Basicbrown]

Of course yanbu run for your life its just a job. You can get another one, far better that letter of resignation now. Loads of people leave jobs without having one to go to

[Toska]

I'm not allowed to copy in anyone to the abusive/aggressive emails, I am the only one who has to respond to him. I first forwarded one of his missives on to her in November. She is telling her manager that she is composing a comprehensive response to him and they are leaving it at that. This 'comprehensive response' still hasn't appeared.

My colleague who is sat next to me had a change in manager. She was taken to lunch and told about the change. With our targets it differs slightly from normal workplaces. You are asked to put together an expected target then your manager will add about five to this number. She doubled it.

This manager is definitely more hands on than the old one. The old one sat next to me and speaking to her more than once a week was rare.

I just don't want to make the wrong decision. I made the wrong decision by not applying for jobs when we got our infertility diagnosis. Silly me thought that if a doctor tells you that there is no wait at a fertility clinic that meant that you would start IVF and not be waiting almost a year later.