Re: bad appraisal and seems odd

[theredjellybean]

I have been in my job 2.5 yrs and work as part of team. the work we do involves 2 members of the team doing each piece of work. It is pretty intense high level legal stuff, anyway for 2 years my boss has been very very positive, and both end of year reviews i got successful rating. We are currently under a lot of pressure and the job is definitely harder and the whole team feel it. Some months ago to ease pressure on our boss two new managers were appointed from within the team, this was apparently to do the every day managing stuff, like leave requests and appraisals etc. As a team we didn't feel it was a great plan, too divisive and the person who got the role in my area isn't well liked for his interpersonal skills. I had an immediate clash when he altered some of my work while i was away , and implied he knew better as he was now 'senior' to me. These new roles were never meant to be about the new managers being better at the actual job than the rest of us and i was polite but firm about this , backed up by overall boss.
So things have trundled along ok ish , and i had my mid yr review and he absolutely tore me to bits, said there had been extensive feedback from other half of team that i was not good at my job, they have to lots of work on my work etc etc, i had no idea....we work well ( i thought as a team) and chat and discuss work all the time and no one has ever ever mentioned any problems, apparently this is due to my 'in-approachability' and refusal to change....i am the most friendly , gregarious , happy natured person, often ask colleagues for help and always thank them and acknowledge that some of them are really experienced at job and i am not , so often say ' oh thanks that sounds great, i couldn't think of right way to word that bit' or similar.
we are audited in our work and I have had perfect audits for the whole 2.5 yrs.
My manager didn't have an evidence to support his feedback but said the issues had been there a long time. When I challenged him and said i had perfect audits and old boss had never mentioned a problem he seemed to imply old boss was 'too nice to say anything'.
I have approached old boss who says no there were no issues previously but yes he had heard a few mutterings lately.
He was incredibly patronising and wouldn't listen to me at all. I asked what should we do next and his answer was ' lets reflect and park this for few months' ....errr.....you have just told me you have seriously bad feedback about my performance and you want to do nothing ??? I felt I was being set up to fail more. He did keep saying this was a supportive process and he would and the team would do anything i needed to improve . As i don't see I had a problem not sure what i could do to improve , however i suggested i work with 2 or 3 other people exclusively and if they have feedback i would happily listen to it etc , like a mentoring system .
Apparently the others were approached to do this and all said no they couldn't as it was too much work.
So going forward I have no idea what i am doing wrong and no one seems to want to help me figure it out and improve if in fact i need to .

Fair enough if i am doing it wrong happy to have some support etc but really feel this is rather unfair and I feel so upset, I love my job and thought we were a great friendly team who liked each other, now feel stabbed in the back and don't even want to go into the office next week.
Am i over reacting ? and really dont what to do now ? any thoughts ?

God. That is utterly appalling. One of my rules about appraisals is that nothing should come as a surprise, particularly not bad feedback. But any bad feedback must come with evidence attached, otherwise it's just bitching.

I think you need to raise it with his boss - is that your old boss? And ask to have a sit down the three of you, and preferably HR if there is one. State again you are disappointed that after several years of perfect audits there now appears to be an issue with the quality of your work but your immediate concern is to make sure that this is addressed. It's completely stupid of him to say it's a supportive process when he claims basically no support is available to you - your suggestion of close working with just a couple of people was a very sensible one.

His suggestion just to park it is moronic. If there is a serious issue with your work (which frankly there is absolutely no evidence of) it clearly must be addressed and cannot be allowed to fester.

Personally I think he has got an over-inflated sense of his importance after the promotion, has had it in for you since you (rightly) challenged him on his experience of the work, and decided just to stick one to you in the appraisal to feed his ego. What a little shitbag.

Presumably the outcome of the appraisal has to be documented? Regardless of that, make sure you write a full account of what happened and who said what as soon as you can, so that you have that to refer back to. I would then ask for a meeting with him and his boss to discuss the feedback and how you can address it, starting with your last three pieces of work and the audits of each. Ask for honest and detailed feedback as to their shortcomings and reiterate a desire to improve.

I would also go and find your own mentor in the office (I don't believe he asked anyone) and see if you can put some informal support in place. Try to avoid meetings with this guy on your own (i.e. with no witnesses) if you can, but if you can't, follow up with notes of the meeting by email as soon as possible after each one.

What an awful thing to happen, you must feel like you've been punched in the stomach. However, I think it is far more likely than this guy is just a little Hitler (you see it all the time when someone inadequate gets the merest whiff of power) but if there are genuine concerns about your work, you can address them IF someone can walk you through what they are.

thankyou so so much for reply.
you have nailed it and i am going to do exactly what you have said.
I have a very senior role in a public area and usually confident and together but this has knocked me so much .
I have tried to think rationally and give some lee way to fact new manager is justdoing same job as me and suddenly he has management responsibility and has never managed anyone before and had minimal training. I can usually find good in all people !! but he handled it all so badly and i was happy to try and work through issues if they exist feel i need some kind of redress . So yes old boss is still both our over arching boss so will ask for meeting with both of them.

Agreed - I think avoid making it personal but frame it in terms of 'there seems to be a problem here, let's work to solve it' (but with the subtext 'my preferred solution is to comprehensively demonstrate this bloke is talking out his arse, but I am open to alternatives'). No need to make it obvious, I think the guy will walk himself into the quicksand whilst you stand by and let him.