To think I've been given a verbal warning or even shown the door?

[chatenoire]

Hey ladies!

I've told you about this saga before, but I feel like if I read between the lines, I was either given a first verbal warning or kindly shown the door.

My boss told me that she's noticed a complete decline in my performance in the past two months. I however know that yes maybe in August? I noticed things were starting to go south, but looking at emails/calendars it was early September.

Anywho, it was multifactorial but overall my manager gave me a few options:

*That she'll support me to move to another company in case I'm unhappy (I assured her I'm not, but she mentioned it twice).

*That I can move to a different team (she told me to tell her by next week as she'll meet that manager)

*Work on my current role.

She however did ask (twice) to at least do my basic job correctly (help her to help me).

I do feel a bit stuck, but I think it's because they started pointing things at me and not necessarily because I was terrible to begin with. I also think that because my core workload is low, my output is also low, so it's easier to see mistakes.

Oh no, nobody has budgets that's a fact of life. It's a very long story that one, but I do believe him when he said they couldn't officially take me as they did say I could start helping them with other stuff (that apparently nobody knows about!)

and I'm not I'm being dismissive. I think I did have a few rainy days. My colleagues has had plenty, one that cost them thousands in fact.

What your colleagues may or may not have done is irrelevant. You are dismissing the bigger picture. Your performance is in question and only you can address that. If their workload is increased because of your inadequacies that will have an impact on them. You cannot cherry pick which aspects of the role to do and expect them to do the rest. You need to share the basics too. That is what is required and what you are paid to do.

Op, what changed from yesterday and rhe very clear guidance your manager gave you on options and timing to today, where you have decided that no longer stands? What has she said exactly that has confirmed this in your mind?

It's a confusing account of your situation but it appears that your manager has been trying to solve problems in the team and with you - you referred to earlier team improvement meetings and later on a meeting or meetings and conversation with you.

In a conversation, she has asked you to improve in your core job; it appears there is an improvement plan but you say it is not a formal personal improvement plan; also, from your account, she has not given you a formal warning, either oral or written. Instead, she has suggested three options for you to consider. These are informal signals that you need to read and act on.

None of this is pleasant for you or the manager and naturally you are upset and your confidence is affected but at the same time it is up to you to recognise that there is a problem and that you need to improve, and to decide which of three or four options to choose and act upon.

Is your job actually in the UK? Advice given by various posters about the law during the first two years of employment is based on that assumption. And you mentioned something that implied you work remotely.

For the money you are on, you should be performing at a much higher level.

You are minimising the negative effects you are having on all your colleagues, and may not be aware of the exasperation, work duplication and resource wasting you are causing.

You are focusing on the format of feedback you require, not the content of the feedback you have actually been given.

Stop trying to explain why this is not that bad, and not your fault, and how you could not possibly have been aware of the issue.

You are aware of the issue now.

What matters is what you do now, in response to that awareness.

Focus on practicalities, not excuses.

I mean that kindly. I am just being as plain-talking as I can.

Talking in circles about why it's OK to cause 6 hours of unnecessary work for a senior manager - this does not help you.

Working out what to do next WILL help you.

I get her annoyance, I really do, but realistically it has only cost her about 6 hours of her time in the past 6-8 weeks.

Read back through your posts and look at just how many times you do this - fake acknowledgement and then actually totally dismiss.

No manager wants to, or should, spend an hour a week doing the job of a staff member who has been in role for 2 years. An hour from a 40 hour week is 2.5% of her time! That time spent on training, coaching, developing - yes, pays for itself. Cleaning up mistakes - no.

I’ve helped incompetent team members - it happens. But if they were as dismissive as you about it, I’d want them out of my team.

Your managers time costs more than yours. Stop pissing it up the wall.

Yes I would agree with that, but so far their workload hasn't been increased.

But at least one of your colleagues has complained that they are doing more of the day to day work than you and you state you had time on your hands. Yet the quality of what you do produce is still not up to standard. There is an unevenness to how you are working and you appear to not grasp how to resolve it.

The harsh reality is. You're not working to the required standard you will be fired eventually she's giving you options.... I would fund another job pronto

Anyway to put this to an end...

She told me not to panic and that it wasn't a PIP and that we'd work on this together. So it's more of a "put your big girl pants on" type of thing.

I also wrote like a SWOT analysis of me and my work (shared it with her) and gave her a visual breakdown of what I'm actually doing with my time, so she can see the workload issue.

There's also clearly something wrong with my brain as I had to read a document like 4-5 times and each time there was a mistake. So I need to find a strategy that will help me see these things.

I've also come to the conclusion that I don't think I'd find my current role fulfilling, I don't think I ever will, so I should stop lying to myself about that.

So what I'll suggest to my boss is that yes, I'll try to move to the other team once I'm trained on the new stuff and they don't need me. Our workload is seasonal, and we simply don't have enough headcount for that.

She mentioned there was definitely use of my natural skills once one budget got approved but she's been fighting for it for like a year at least 18 months so it won't happen, but I can say I plan to stay (with my quality going back to an acceptable standard). Once she gets that budget or I find a new role, it will be crunch time, whatever happens first.

And when she was told to give me some of her work she made a big deal out of it.

Perhaps she thought you would not give it priority and it would fall back on her anyway. It is not about you finding the work fulfilling but that you are not fulfilling the requirements of the role for which you are being paid. Are you sure that you were achieving to the standard until a few months ago, or has the two year contract deadline perhaps brought things to a head? Earlier you mention no budget constraints, yet now you do Are they likely to need to lose headcount to reflect the seasonality of the workload?

70k? No way!
On 70k you shouldn't be needing regular 1:1 supervision, you should know exactly what you need to do and when to do it, sure a yearly appraisal and the occasional touching base, but otherwise you should be working independently on your brief.
On 70k no one should be spending time correcting your mistakes, and you shouldn't be producing a 'messy' document.
Op in the nicest possible way, if you really are on 70k, you are going to have to up your game, if the company doesn't have an HR department, it can't be that large, 70k for a small company is a sizeable salary, especially as they've mentioned redundancies.

Everybody has 1:1s!! I'm the odd one. Within my team there's 1:1s, within other teams they have 1:1s (I know this as I've seen when senior management share their calendars).

We're a medium size company, just not big in the UK. Redundancies are still happening everywhere albeit slowing down.

We do have budget restraints and headcount freezes. If people leave (for whatever reason) nobody gets a replacement

Definitely up to standard, I mean up to June I was aligned to get a promotion, not even one inch of negative feedback.

Haven't read the full thread but surely she should have mentioned something when she first noticed that things were off? I don't think they can sack you without adequate warnings. Verbal, written then formal etc.

But not now. Who suggested that and did you get complacent? Tbh you sound difficult to work with and not much of a team player.

My manager!!

As I haven't met the 2 year mark they can't just kick me out. IME the same can happen regardless of years of service. I once was made redundant without any warning nor process after 7 years!

So what happened in June?

How did you get from being on target for a promotion to being at risk of being fired? Or, at the very least, being on what looks like a informal path to being managed out?

You don't qualify for redundancy package within two years' service, they can just give notice. Were you employed on a ftc?

I’m afraid at under two years employment they can just release you. Ie. Give you minimum notice as per your contract.

Well that's what I'm trying to figure out!
But I can't see any pattern apart from even fewer documents than I thought.

In the past seven weeks:

I've had 8 calls that can translate into documents.

Realistically I've only produced 4.

Out of the three guys that "feed" me work only one has produced anything to work on.

Up 5 weeks ago I had a mid year appraisal (all good), up to two weeks ago it's when I was told I was bored, and then today.

It now makes sense why my boss thought that something literally happened to me. It's all just very sudden and out of nowhere.