I started a new job about a year ago. I’ll be vague about it for obvious reasons, but basically I am in a junior managerial role and am supposed to work closely with the manager of our department as a kind of deputy to her. We also have clients to deal with so there are two elements to my role – dealing with clients and helping to run the department. It was quite a big step up for me and I was an external appointment to the organisation.
Since the beginning I started to feel my manager didn’t like me. No real reason, she has always been friendly(ish) and polite, but I don’t get warm vibes from her. Everyone else there seems to love her and go on about how great she is, but I don’t really see it, though I get that she does a good job but I feel there are so many things that could be done differently to make us more efficient. Any ideas I have put forward have always been shot down in a sort of PA way. It’s disappointing and I thought I was supposed to show initiative, but this woman is so resistant to change it’s a nightmare. Then, over time, she started picking holes in the way I do the most basic elements of my job – even those that I have been doing for years and aren’t really part of the management role.
For a while now I have been keeping an email trail of what she says because I just feel she has it in for me. Yes, I will admit to having missed some deadlines and one of the projects I have been dealing with has run into some problems, but they’re not all my fault and even she has admitted she should have been clearer about deadlines and offering more support. This finally culminated a few months ago with her referring me to her line manager, who she told she had concerns about my performance. I was given yet more targets and thought I had met them all, but now she has become distant again and I just feel like this isn’t the place for me. I have noticed that some aspects of my job she has started to give to other team members, which feels like the final straw, though I haven’t really got a clear job description. We have a review coming up and I’m finding it hard to stop thinking about it.
WIBU jus to leave? The problem is I earn more than dh who has just finished training for his dream job. His earning potential will rise but he’s now on the bottom rung and we have two dc to think about. I’m worried about the kind of reference I would get from this place and if I had to take a backward step out of a management role that would look awful wouldn’t it? Fuck – what can I do?