Late stage - work boundaries

[lemondropsandallsorts]

Firstly, I get my work done. I have always gone above and beyond to ensure I was a good little worker bee. I have been at the job 8 years now, have a great office culture and no red flags at all. My coworkers are all great.

Two weeks ago, I was setting up a conference room and had moved the partition to separate it into one large room and one small room. My direct boss and her peer walked into the big room, not realising I was in the little room, and were chitchatting about the teams.

I was just about to announce myself when my direct boss mentioned that she was not going to offer me the promotion I had gone for. She immediately fired back to the shocked response of her peer to say that I was brilliant in my role, indispensable and deserved the promotion, but frankly, as the absolute workhorse of the team, she needed me to stay where I was.

Her peer mentioned that it didn't seem very fair, and my direct boss said something along the lines of (I was reeling at this point and my recollection gets a bit fuzzy) being a manager, you have to look at the bigger picture and the bigger picture was I served her and the overall team better staying where I was.

At that point people started trailing into their room for a meeting so the conversation stopped. The whole thing happened in the matter of seconds. I felt like I had been punched. (luckily, I was on leave for a while after, but I was emailed later to say I had not got the job. I had been so close, but hadn't done quite enough at the interview. But I was a shoe in for the next round of promotions in about a year, or maybe two - if I kept up the good work)

Every fibre of my being wanted to act rashly, hand in my notice and flounce or rant back to the email - but I have just finished a work-based qualification (in preparation for the promotion) and I will have to pay the cost back if I leave within a set period of time. Also, I have bills to pay.

So, to the point of this post.

I NEED to become less available for about a year (after that I don't need to pay the training bill and my house buying process will all be done to a change won't mess up my mortgage offer). My work only does tombstone references - so I am not worried about a sudden lack of enthusiasm showing up on references if I end up going external.

So ladies, give you tips for just doing the job you are paid for - but not a single damn thing above and bejond because I need to sit this out for a year and the only way I can cope is by planning how to unmake myself indispensable.

I really hope you get the job so good luck 🤞 they must see something in you that they like 👍

Your posts are so interesting @lemondropsandallsorts !

good luck for the interview!

Take the word “sadly” out of that post! That’s great news! If you’ve got an interview they think you can do your job. Go in there and show them you have what it takes. Good luck!

I've been seething for weeks about this whole thing, and this morning I realised that being angry has kept me so revved up that it just bulldosed all other emotions out of the way.

I woke up today and realised the impact of this office's closure. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was smothering all other feelings by still being mad, but it suddenly wore off this morning.

I started the opening post saying that I liked the work, the people, the flexibility, the pension, and the pay, the general feeling is one of a comfortable, nice place to work. I have a lovely team, a comfy desk, it has great parking, fab services and links to the local town centre. I have worked here for 8 years, and genuinely, until that day in the conference room, it was a lovely place to work. (and to be fair, outside of dodging the extra tasks, it still was)

I am very sad this morning.

Hi there, responding to your post. It’s entirely understandable that you feel sad, there’s some posts on here which are very much in the welcome to the revolution, stick to the man tone of voice, and I have been thinking that doesn’t entirely really fit your situation. You wanted to undertake this additional study, you wanted the promotion, you wanted the extra responsibility (and at some stage to be the person who has to walk into the room and announce the plan to wind the site down or to be one of those who knew it was coming). Various things are going wrong, including your manager’s decision and you finding out her real reasoning, your feelings that instead of being supported and challenged to prepare for your promotion they were just taking your time and then they appointed some dumb dude who didn’t last five minutes. And now this, together with the nasty feeling that it’s not really a business decision it’s all to do with the HR lady and the building owner.

Don’t let this strip you of your ideas about the future. You are not condemned to the cubicle and you don’t have to believe that everyone is awful, self-interested, stupid and there’s no positives and no values anywhere. If you got an interview for 20K more that’s not because you somehow tricked them or they were not awake when they read your application, it’s because you put in a good application. In this situation they may have others with more experience than you, but as you say if you can take it that way it’s a real opportunity to practice and good can often come of a good interview - you’ve shown yourself in a good light to a company you would be interested in working for. You will find out more about them, which at the very least will be useful for you for the future (and will help you clarify what you want as well as gleaning info that you can use).

I liked a previous workplace very much too, it wasn't without it's issues but two issues became overwhelmingly bad I opted for voluntary redundancy if it came up and after a while I was made redundant.

Emotions ran wild and I'm not ordinarily an emotional person. It's a relationship breakup and all the same kinda of anger, regret, sadness and happiness will present themselves over the coming weeks. I wanted the situation and yet still felt both shitty and glad and like I'd felt all the wrong things and later all the right things. It was a really difficult process to manage but looking back it was right.

It's not surprising that you felt angry after what happened, it's also normal to feel sad. You'll find your emotions will run through a cycle, hopefully as the news settles in you will find something more at peace. This situation was always going to happen, when we feel in control we are often more comfortable with our feelings. When our control is taken away, it's a different kettle of fish.

You had every right to feel how you did, you have every right to feel sad too, one doesn't dismiss the other. You also have a wonderful bundle of opportunities too and focussing on those can be helpful in this process.

At present you don't know what the future holds, I found it was like being suddenly tipped out of bed when fast asleep. However the company hasn't made you redundant, there may yet be opportunities to stay with them or move on to a better workplace. On the meantime it is perfectly ok to feel everything that comes along. This time next year, whatever happens you will view the whole situation differently and whatever happens will have lead you to something better in the end.

It’s crap all round @lemondropsandallsorts

Started off crap because you found out you had been shafted, then it was the fall out of that, boss off, new hire bolting then the audacity of mgt requesting stepping up for absolutely no reward while knowing you had been shafted. All of that was horrific, then it’s a new awful of indications your job is likely to be made redundant within a year but no actual facts. You poor bastard, you are totally entitled to be angry, sad and licking your wounds.

Just a little update - I heard back from the interview, they called and were very lovely/complimentary, but I didn't get the job (but as I said, it was a wild punt)

Management is holding another meeting this week because, much to their surprise, people are leaving in droves.

Last week, it suddenly reached a tipping point where it impacted the normal day-to-day business. Admin can be looked down upon, and considered a bit of a necessary evil. But I tell you right now, when it doesn't get done, problems are not being solved, Orders are not being placed, things are not where they need to be because the planning hasn't been done, essentially, everything starts to fall down.

I genuinely believe that they thought everyone would ride out their jobs for a year and then start looking way down the line.

I feel like I am watching a car crash in slow motion - So I'm kind of looking forward to this meeting, in a weirdly gleeful way, to see what the heck they are going to do to stem the flow of people out the door.

I will never understand leadership, directors or other management paying so little attention to a department/team who literally keep a business running. Admin is the heart of a business! It's infuriating, honestly.

I'm looking forward to the update post meeting, for sure!

Yes, funny that the way admin/finance can be viewed as an annoyance by some.

But the money lost, payments not received, bad feeling through lack of resolution of problems for clients and customers is very real.

20 years ago I took a brief finance contract to look at old credit issues in a large multinational that had had a high turnover in staff.

Within 6 weeks they were in funds of 2 million plus. Unbelievable.
All old invoices, some up to 5 years old, that simply had never been received, chased, sorted out, and therefor remained unpaid.

It actually wasn't difficult at all, just a bit labour intensive.

Poor admin etc, can cost serious money to an organisation.

Pls keep posting updates OP, most enjoyable.
Well done on the positive feedback.

Once your eyes are open to peoples true thoughts, you can't unsee it.

Well done for doing a great interview. Make sure you remember the good feedback - they didn’t have to phone and say all that, they said it because they meant it. You’ve also proved that you can do a great interview, so much so that when you go for a “wild punt” they actually take you seriously as a candidate. Given that they really showed you that they liked you, do you think they may have something else for you down the line?

Figure out from the interview what you thought about them - what does that tell you about whether you’d like to work for them and about what you do and don’t want in your future employer. What else did you learn that could be useful to you in future?

Keep on doing what you said at the beginning, sit tight and devote your best brain and energy to your next step.

Awww you are all being really sweet.

I emailed HR on the day of the announcement to check, and they only got back to me today - apparently, they are a bit busy lol. They confirmed that the balance for my qualification will still become due if I leave because the site will remain open beyond the end date of the agreement, and as such, the site closure announcement is neither here nor there.

It's what I expected to be fair, but I was hoping for a bit of understanding.

So apparently, I have to watch this play out right to the last gasp.

@lemondropsandallsorts hopefully if enough folks leave it won’t be viable to keep your site open and they will be looking at redundancies? And then no training fee repayable?

Not a nice thing to wish for but this is like a slow death for all employees and not feasible for most to move.

I'm not a lawyer but if the other site is so far away that you would not be able to commute there then there might be an argument that it is effectively constructive dismissal/redundancy - might be enough to get HR to go away on the costs of the qualification?

@Londonmummy66 - That was basically the email that I sent HR to ask. But as the site is not going to close till after the repayment term is completed, it is a straight up no.

In relation to constructive dismissal redundancy, again, the site is not going to move for a year and a couple of months. At that point, constructive dismissal/redundancy can be considered, but by then it's a moot point because at that point I don't have to pay the qualification.

Apparently, the reason it is a year and a few months is because that's when the lease is paid up till (Or contractually agreed to be paid till I am not sure), so they won't be closing the site early because the money has already been spent.