Been with a law firm for almost 10 years. A year ago almost to the day I returned from maternity leave, DD is nearly 2. In the last year I’ve had 3 managers (constant changes in management which now seem to have settled), had some underhand stuff go on with a colleague trying to take work/arrange meetings behind my back which I raised with HR as I was so upset at the time but nothing was done and have not been included in pay review since my return from mat leave despite all my team having pay rises. I’ve not felt like I had any continuity or direction since being back.
Anyway in October I had a first meeting with the third (and seemingly final) change to my line manager. They said it had seemed a bit like I was trying to get to grips with things when I came back from mat leave but that things were very much in the right direction and they were pleased with moving forward into the next year and explained all the plans for the team that they wanted me to be involved with etc. In that meeting I specifically asked about performance and was told there were no issues with my performance at all.
Unfortunately in January I was unwell (for the first time in 7 years!) and off sick for two weeks. New manager was annoyed I had contacted HR rather than them directly when off sick and I explained that I had done that because I thought that was the correct procedure. It was a bit awkward and he seemed to be making a point. So, fast forward to the next catch up meeting which happened last week and I’m told that actually there’s serious concerns with my performance and that if I don’t sort it out within 4 weeks then HR will be brought in and I will have a formalised performance review. Obviously I asked to examples and he said I hadn’t saved documents to the right file site, I had made spelling mistakes (spelled February wrong on a document that I didn’t realise didn’t have spell check so it seemed it was correct) and that I hadn’t included the right documents in a list for a hearing. I asked for more examples and he said he didn’t want to go through that but he did have a list. He then said he thought I had lots of leeway since returning from mat leave and perhaps my focus was elsewhere or maybe I wanted to look to work somewhere else. I was pretty taken aback by all this and asked him to confirm if this was a formal procedure and he just said no, it would become formal in a month if no change. He said he would send me some objectives by the end of this week.
I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I never really gelled with him much but I didn’t dislike him. I get the strong sense he wants me to leave and now have zero confidence that he wants me to stay, it seems he is waiting to get HR involved. He said I could speak to HR if I wanted for ‘support.’ What I don’t understand is why he didn’t pull up these things at the time? Why leave it as if all was well then suddenly say this? I want to leave but in my own time and now feel pushed out.