To feel belittled at work

[Homedeco]

I’m 24, have 6 years of work experience in financial analysis and retail management, and a psychology degree.

I currently work in a job centre and the work I conduct is easier than any job I’ve had before. My previous manager was invested in my development. I led on 2 areas in the job centre & was deputy, so line manager in his absence.

New manager joined a month ago and has asked me to stop leading in all areas and has told me to just conduct normal job centre tasks. She said my lead areas aren’t a priority & that I’m too young to be the deputy. She shows zero interest in me - she’ll say hello to the others on the team and ask about their lives, but she only talks to me about work. Aibu to feel pushed out? It’s odd going from excelling at work to being irrelevant

Too young? Have you raised a complaint about age discrimination?

I guess posting this thread was to gauge whether it’s worth raising a complaint

She’s asking me to focus on the basic tasks that are part of my job description eg manning a phone line, basic admin, covering appointments etc. so presumably that’s her defence in a grievance

Reddit has a saying that no one leaves a bad job. They leave bad managers. Further, when someone shows you what they are like, believe them.

So, you have received excellent training and experience, you now have a bad manager so polish your resume and contact a few recruiters. If you have current details for your ex manager, see if you can use him as a reference.

Life is too short to muck around with this sort of shit. You can be relèvent for someone else with an enhanced job description and pay.

Bad management is accurate.

I can deal with not being a lead anymore, but I can’t deal with a manager who doesn’t have your back and is plain unsupportive. Someone could probably say anything negative about me & she’d probably believe it. Like I don’t have any confidence in her.

thank you for the advice! X

Also I don’t want to work at a job centre forever, I’ll use this kick up the arse to get back on track & apply for roles in finance again.

I do feel like she’s judging me on my appearance more than anything else as I am good at my job (whatever it is I’m asked to do).

She did mention her 22 year old just passed her driving test. Maybe she sees me as too inexperienced by default if she’s got a daughter a similar age? Probably thinks it’s impossible for her own daughter to do her own job

My thing is though, she’s a civil service grade/band of HEO. So as a deputy, I would be a HEO grade when my manager isn’t in.

Graduates enter the civil service as HEOs. Graduates can be 21+. Therefore I’m not really seeing why my age is a barrier here. It’s not like I’m trying to be the Secretary of State fresh out of university

It happens a lot in the Civil Service, in my 27 years service I have had several managers who were like this, have you thought of looking for a transfer or applying for a promotion to get away from her?

Oh wow! That’s awful.

I applied for an EOI last week and for a few on civil service jobs eg fast stream. (Though I wouldn’t start that any time soon!)

Reads to me as though your not doing the job your paid for and busying your self doing other things to fill your aspersions
are other people having to fill the gape in you Leave when doing other things

It will never get better with her. For the sake of your sanity, leave as soon as you can. Too many managers are threatened by people with ability, yours is one of them.

I'm a manager with a team of very mixed ages. They're a really great combination of people, all with their strengths, but my top performer is currently the youngest in my team. My predecessor, their previous manager, I'm giving the handover to me was determined to make this person "wait their turn " and didn't want to develop them because of their age. Totally unacceptable.

You've got a jealous manager by the sounds of it, you're young and capable and there's plenty of people who have found it hard to progress so want to ensure everyone else finds it just as hard.

Is she by any chance one of those who has been in the civil service for a long time and has that thing about how you have to "pay your dues" at any particular grade before you could possibly be allowed to even think about progressing? The department I work in is terrible for that.

Anyway, I think your best bet is to put all your energy into finding a better opportunity. I'd steer clear of anything that needs your manager to agree to release you, eg level transfers that weren't advertised externally and EOIs.

To clarify for you, management asked me to do other work, provided training and asked me to prioritise certain things, attend meetings on their behalf etc. I followed their instructions - I was not “busying myself” and ignoring my job as you’re suggesting. Everything was done with their consent. It’s normal to have staff lead on areas in job centres - it’s not my “aspersions”

Right now, I’m doing less work overall than I was before. I’m good at my job which is why I was asked to take on other work to begin with. I’m always picking up work for other people rather than the other way round as you suggest.

If she said you were too young to be deputy, then raise that with her as a concern.

Otherwise--it's great that your previous manager supported your development, however it's not really good management to have one employee put in charge or in lead positions when that's not technically in their job description. If I were your manager, and new to a department , I too would ask everyone to focus on their job description duties so that I could get a sense of how the department worked.

But if you're bored in your job--yeah go on, kick yourself the arse and find yourself a challenge!

The old management asked not the new
I used to have a manger who delegated a massive chunk of his job to the team
new manager came along reined this in a did these tasks himself

@Coffeetree I get that - every manager has a deputy however, it’s normal procedure in my office. Deputies get training and they only deputise when the manager is away for 2+ days. There’s no line management responsibility when the manger is in the office. She also has allowed other people on the team to keep their lead areas, she just said to me that the office doesn’t need my lead areas any more (although the work is still there)

That’s the thing though, she asked me to stop leading in areas as the office doesn’t need it. However the work is still there and there is still that expectation that I do the work. It isn’t her that’s picking up the work if that makes sense? It’s her decision that I don’t do it, but she hasn’t communicated that properly to others and hasn’t implemented a proper handover of how others action that work without me. Therefore it ends up being expected that I do it because apparently no one else can

Time to move on.
In the meantime, every single time a deputy type query comes up, you refer the person to your manager. Don't be embarrassed or ashamed about your change of role, you've done nothing wrong, but if you continue to act up without recognition or pay, then you're doing yourself a disservice.

You just need to tell your colleagues that you have been told you cannot take on the deputy duties any more, and refer back to her. She sounds suffocating, and that she has a chip on her shoulder, whether she feels threatened by you, or she is judging you unfairly I don't know. I think its time for you to move.

My first job was at DWP (well technically Benefits Agency at the time) and the ability of managers then was beyond woeful, sad to see nothings changed.

Use the additional responsibilities to really sell yourself when applying for other roles.

Sorry to be a bit dim, but how can you have a degree and have worked for 6 years at age 24? Normally you would have left school at 18, 3 years to do degree, then started work at 21?

I get more of what you mean now
step away from it
the difficulty is she won’t see the problem because you still do it so there isn’t one
2 options

1. she’s a twat
2. finding her feet and not got a handle on how things run or what people need to do

pull back tell her people keep asking you to do things she doesn’t want to
kick the ball to her

Just quit. I doubt there’s a legal avenue here that’s really worth the hassle of pursuing (it would take ages, and then what?) so just find a job where your responsibilities are clear beforehand.