Corporate life as 40s female in management is crap?

[Sammi83]

Hi

My DH suggested i post here as he thinks the way i feel is just life and to suck it up so here goes

Im 40 and basically not had a few good years work wise. The constant thinking : worrying about situations and low level disatisfaction is spoiling my enjoyment of life. We live in london and could move out and downsize and pack it in but be very hard up and get no benefits / no pension. Have 3 expensive DC (9+) one with ADHD & mortgage going up £500 from July

Work details examples:

• promoted to management around 5y ago. Immediately jealous female direct report makes life a misery refusing to do anything i ask as angry wasnt told about role. Boss says needs a dev plan. Puts in grievance. I won but took a year of huge stress while team split up during covid hospifalised with stress for a week

• after this moved to diff role in same place, huge team busy but ok. But toxic sexist culture (FCA investigating). Won constructive dismissal after being forced to be a sexist whistleblower (told I had to be). Then bonus slashed. Workload inc. team taken away to make unwell. Had burnout for 4m and a psychotherapist. Work made it look like i was fired and people told not to contact me so couldnt say goodbye after working there for 7yrs

• after burnout took what was told as temp to perm head of dept role for 10m as contract (unwell and needed to get work asap). Then work merged another company and told go perm feb then on hold. Then maternity cover came back 4m early (June rather than Nov due to merger panic when baby 4m old- mad). Is rude to me, shouted at me during handovers (embarrassingly had to escalate to her boss as doesnt seem to he coping). Deleted me from my team meetings and not thanked me publicly.

Have a shared boss who is following up with her but now i am still contractor, perm on hold til xmas. Told new role no team due to merger. No hol pay over summer so out of pocket. Boss does really like me and his boss.

AIBU corporate life just unsatisfying

or is this corporate management (as a woman, treated as less than)

Or is this a poor series of events over last 5yrs and next 5 likely to be much better? Thanks

“Publicly thanked. I mean re maternity cover coming back, not even said thank you to my face, just acting entitled and not said anything nice to me.”

I find that a bit odd from you, really. You were paid to do a job, and she was legally entitled to return. I’ve twice covered maternity leaves and I think it would have been awkward all round to thank someone - it’s not a personal favour! My team always thank each other for holiday cover, cos frankly it’s a ball ache and beyond what you’re paid for. I suppose if you prepare a hand back, then a passing thank you for that may be due. But you seem focused on a public thank you - which just weird.

It's highly unusual that anyone, in the space of 5 years, would have a grievance compliant against them, be a whistle-blower and have a constructive dismissal case.

That's a lot to deal with in a very short space of time. It's not really surprise you ended up burnt out.

On top of that, the whole environment you have been working in appears toxic.

It appears that it might be the case that while you are no longer fully burntout, you are only on the way back up. It may take longer to get back to the pre-burn out version of yourself & a toxic environment is probably slowing your recovery.

Like others have said, in your circumstances I would be looking for a lateral external move with a less toxic culture.

There's probably a few thibgs to consider:

• Have you fully recovered?
• If not, is this really the environment to aid recovery?
• Do you want to remain in management?
• Do you need a complete change?

I'm a little lost of the maternity leave cover. I'm not sure why anyone would thank me for it but most of all the person you were covering for. The company should perhaps thank you but not the employee whose iob you did.

Same. You've been in some unfortunate situations and some shitty ones. Chalk them up to experience and find a new job.

Reading your post, I knew you were in banking before you even mentioned FCA.

Some of this bullshit is par for the course as a senior woman. But I think you've been exceptionally unlucky to have 3 'incidents' in 5 years. In my experience, it's more usual to have 1 'incident' on average every 4-5 years. I suspect that doesn't help you much other than to reiterate that you've been unlucky.

Don't pack it in. You must be good to have got this far. We need all the good women we can get. Use your network not just to find work but to find out the cultural reality of a team/dept/division before you join and then try and build a network of other supportive senior women. Get a mentor if you don't have one already. It's not as clearcut as Bank X is bad. (I'm sure you know all this!). It can really vary between teams / divisions. And of course that can change at any time (from bad to good, but also good to bad). There are certain banks that I would never work for (having had experience of them when I was consulting or interviewed with them) and also certain consultancies that I would never touch either. Talk to people you trust, get their view.

You could consider an industry change but it may not make you happy (or pay as well). After I had 2 'incidents' in a row, I'd had enough and decided to try a similar role but in the not-for-profit sector as a contractor to test the waters. It was great for the first week. Although I couldn't get my head round people starting at 9am, taking an hour for lunch and the office being empty by 5.30pm. Most bizarre. 😂(How screwed up are us bankers?!) When they hired me for a specific project they told me that had 5 months of work but could only afford me for 3 months so just do the best I can in that time. I finished the whole thing in 2 months. 😛And that was working their 9am-5pm day and taking a lunch break. The much slower pace of work drove me insane. Lovely lovely people, talented too (apart from one noted exception - senior male of course, who made the mistake of thinking he could undermine me....that didn't work out so well for him 😜) It was enlightening for me as I soon realised that, once the novelty wore off, I found the slower calmer atmosphere really not fun at all. And actually there was still politics in the office, just more indirect, less brutal and also slower paced...more death of a thousand cuts than one big knife out for you if you get my meaning.

Apologies for the long post but hope it helps a little and sending you support and 💐

I’ve always worked for corporates (financial services) and never experienced this. There are company’s out there without this culture can you look for a different employer? Look at reviews online and also ask about company culture in the interview etc. I’ve declined jobs before where I’ve got the wrong vibe at interviews.