Just want to get this out- work rant and feeling scared that I will fail

[Nanodust]

So, I’ve been through 6 months of hell. Gone from being a very well thought of member of the team to being structured out of the department but thankfully now moving to what I hope will be a better role.
I covered someone’s mat leave. They returned and I moved into a different job within the department. They started a campaign of trying to ruin my reputation, my then boss believed it all. Then spent months nit picking, harrasing and bullying me. Climaxed in a new department structure being rolled out where my permanent role was structure out of the management team and isolated on a temporary project.
I (stupilidy) spoke with who I thought was a trusted colleague to ask for some guidance and support on a way to approach this, who then went to boss and told lies and belittled me.
Things got so bad that the boss was pulling me up on diary mistakes (one in 18 months), discrediting work previously signed off and criticising me for unsubstantiated accusations made against me. All my colleagues started to ignore me and I was left to slowly become isloted, very down and scared.
However another manager recognised my potential and has offered me a new role within the same company. So with knocked confidence, feeling burned out and a little bit scared I will be moving on. No one in the department I am in has really acknowledged my move, despite up until recently being friendly, social and having the odd cofffee from time to time. No one will wish me well and I will leave feeling worthless to them, this is after getting very high level credit for the work I have done, but being dumped and ignored for the last 6 months. They switched off my work access card before I finished so I had the humiliation of needing to wait until someone would let me in and the monthly staff update which includes all new starts and leavers hasn’t included me- I am invisible!
However I will still be working with them and the old boss is suddenly being very ‘nice’ but has moved all the work that no one can do, or is controversial or difficult onto my new role. To some extent this is possible but the staff from old department are trying to set me up to fail, withholding information and then suggesting it is my fault as didn’t ask properly/soon enough/in the right way/never saw email etc etc. All BS but I don’t want to go into all this rubbish with new boss as want to move on and make a new start.
I don’t know really how I got into this place, I feel like I’ve been forced out of a role for no reason, I am worried about my reputation and feel that I am going to fail in this new role. I don’t feel I can be authentic or myself and I’m scared that I will be back into this horrible situation ive just been through again as I won’t cope or will fail. The new job is going to be very tough, high profile and very business critical.

Anyway, if anyone has time for words of wisdom or any thoughts then I’d appreciate it. Although I suppose there’s not so many questions in what I’ve written, just getting it off my chest.

Can you tell me how your relationship with the most senior person aside from your immediate boss is?

I have a good reputation with other senior managers. So much so that I have been asked to work on projects and selected to lead on initiatives.
Since the difficulties with my boss though, I think there has been some attack’s on my reputation.
I also have a good relationship with my new boss.

Try the new role for a bit, whilst you look for another job somewhere else and then say fuck 'em

I find no-one really cares about careers but yourself.

If you died tomorrow, someone else would be in your chair before your funeral.

Good luck, OP, there are better jobs out there for you.

Get every request in writing and copy your new manager in explain there has been tension and you just want to make sure it doesn't carry on to your new role

Thank you. I too think I may be in a situation where I do the new role for a time and then may need to move on. It is frustrating to me as where I work suits me due to the location and working conditions. I am trying not to become resentful that I have effectively been pushed out. There may be a chance that they move on to someone else and I can get back to a position of feeling better and a valued member of the organisation. However the pettiness and general horrid behaviour suggests that may be a struggle.

If you sent your old dept an email asking for some info or whatever by a certain deadline and they didn't do it would you be able to complain about them? Maybe if they miss the first deadline copy in your manager and theirs with a query as to why? And do that every time. Give negative comments on appraisals or anything similar so it actually affects them in some way?

Thanks Damia. That is a good idea. Yes, they are missing deadlines to pass information to me. This means I can’t complete taasks by my deadlines, one of them started a meeting by mocking me about a large piece of work I need to do by a very tight deadline and then said they probably wouldn’t be able to get the information I needed to me in time as they had other things to do. I followed up with an an email stating clearly the priority of the work I was completing. I then received substandard partial information in a format that I couldn’t access as I don’t have the specialist software (they are aware I don’t have it).

If this is all by email you have solid proof it's their fault. Chase regularly, take a note of dates, times, content of other interactions and cc in managers when they're late.

Did you have many absences while working in this department? I ask, because I've noticed in several workplaces that resentment fosters if one staff member is absent a lot.
Otherwise, it seems you were unfortunate with the team you ended up with and you should shrug it off as a problem with them, rather than you and your abilities. Go into the new role with confidence, and as another PP said, be vocal about any poor communication/missed deadlines from them. If there is software that will enable you to function better/faster, then get it.

Honestly I would leave a place like this. It doesn't sound like you could ever enjoy working there since so many people aren't nice.

I wonder if there's not someone fairly senior but not at the top, who is jealous of you...one person who has done this damage?

First of all, it sounds like you've handled this incredibly well and kept a cool head so well done!!

It sounds like a serious case of bullying to me, instigated by the person who returned from maternity leave (I assume she felt threatened by you having done a good job covering her role) and the rest of the dept including the manager are under her influence and have chosen to side with her against you. Maybe she has connections at a senior level or maybe she's just a bitch, who knows.

The internal move is a good idea but please do not let these nasty, weak people f*ck it up for you. Keep that cool head of yours. Do everything by the book. Get everything in writing so you have evidence of what they are doing (or not doing!) and every time they deliver late to you or let you down or just make your life deliberately difficult. Copy your new manager and where necessary, escalate escalate escalate. Keep it professional and factual. Best case scenario is you get the support from management that you need and these morons are put back in their box. Worst case scenario you have a body of evidence to support a grievance/constructive dismissal case.

You sound switched on and I have hope that you can make this new role work. These people are either very arrogant or naive idiots if they think they can undermine you and leave a written evidence trail of what they're doing to you. That gives you the upper hand.

From an emotional perspective, hang in there. I have been through something similar myself and I know how miserable it is and how it f*cks with your head. It nearly broke me. I ended up on Xanax then anti-depressants then taking sick leave for depression. Please don't let it get to that stage. (On a more positive note, I recovered and went back to work and fought for my job because I knew I was good at what I did and I was being attacked by them because I was a threat. Reminds me of that saying "if you kick me when I'm down, you'd better pray I never get up". Well I got up. And I took them on and beat them). You can do it OP.

I haven’t had a day off in over 5 years. I had an exemplar record and for this new role I have been effectively internally head hunted as new boss was very impressed (their words not mine).

It has been suggested by one of the two colleagues who have been kind and supported me that my previous boss has been jealous and so has the person who returned from mat leave. Together they seem to have created a situation where my years of hard work have been dismissed and until recently I thought I might lose my job.
The thing that is the hardest is how people just don’t speak to me now, it really is like I’m invisible and the not providing information for work to be done. So I feel it looks like I can’t manage relationships or I’m odd in some way. However that is the intended outcome I think.
I really hope I can get back into a healthy space where I don’t feel like I am being set up for/will fail. Although my new boss does seem very good so I am hopeful.
The weirdest thing underpinning all of this, despite the accusations, bad behaviour and withholding of information, I am still being put on the most strategic and hardest projects and my insight and knowledge is being sought. Although often then rehashed as their work and/or picked apart to me and then presented to others as a good piece of work.

Thank you so much Hundred- your message has been a real boost and help. I do hope that what goes around comes around and I suppose I am learning from the experience and trying to help others and not replicate this behaviour, that has helped. I do have my monemts when I get home though and I feel despair, very low at times and have developed a bit of a monkey on my back that I will lose my job.
I need to shake it off, but due to the pressure and high profile of my work I need to try to stay in control, all at least give the impression of that, especially when others raise doubts and criticise. I actually finally got a document from one of them as couple of weeks ago and the introduction was work I had done previously that had been cut and paste and then credited to them. It is also so funny, if it wasn’t my life and impacting on my wellbing etc

Personally I’ve found that once this starts you cannot win. You can’t go high when they go low forever as they find new ways to go low, whilst you’re just trying to get on with your life.

Perhaps someone has been passing your work off as theirs for years and this only became apparent with the mat leave cover? Perhaps they’re scared you’re better than them and envy your work so pass it off as theirs whilst getting twisted up inside because of it so end up taking it out on you? Who knows?

None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes. What I’ve found when you’re in this position is any tiny mistake is magnified and criticised and picked apart whereas someone else can make worse mistakes and it’s breezed past.

It’s not what you want to hear but it sounds like your fresh start is already being sabotaged. I’d make a business case to your new manager that emphasises you focusing on work that has nothing to do with your old dept and pick the least worst representative from the old dept to delegate things to or to act as the information person for that dept. Make them accountable for the lack of info, not you and frame it in such a way as it’s an opportunity for someone to gain experience of info management or whatever so you come across as keen to develop other staff. Minimise their ability to effect you in any way.

Best of luck op

Thank you, those are some good strategies. I also hope that they get bored once I’m out of the immediate situation and then find something else to take there frustrations out on.

It is weird but I feel like I’m still walking around in a bit of a tunnel, in that I can’t think straight and every piece of work I’m approaching I have to get over the ‘I can’t do this this’ or ‘what will they think/do’