Is my job a sh*t show or am I overthinking it all?

[Cutlosses]

Joined this place just over a year ago. Job involves going on visits to peoples houses and then making recommendations.

Sold to me as hybrid working. In reality this means a face to face meeting/training every 3 weeks or so. In between can book desks but no one really makes effort to coordinate this so basically sit at home working remotely or sit in office communicating via teams.

I have found it very hard to learn this job via teams training. Team were asked to take me out as a new starter at the beginning but getting shadowing opportunities was like pulling teeth. After 2-3 of these visits manager asks if he can send me my own visits. I said I’d like to see a couple more visits first. He takes me on one more visit then asks again and I said yup send me on visits. each visit needs very different things (houses are different people are different).

This was followed by 3-4 months of me cluelessly going on visits, feeling absolutely useless. Asking for advice from supervisor when I get back.

Then got new supervisor, who clearly didn’t want to supervise me and other new starter. Got told I was asking too many questions and to spread them out.

Anyway started getting along with this supervisor, felt like I was sort of getting in the swing of the actual job, even started feeling a bit confidence in my abilities, still not particularly enjoying the remoteness of it but had some hope. Between supervisor and manager I had asked plenty of times for feedback and just got told “you’re fine” for everything. So not one piece of feedback about doing anything differently.

In between all this is some manager behaviour- phoning personal phone on days off, about work and non work stuff. Have stopped these by boundaried text. Trying to talk me into doing things I don’t think I have time/ skills/ confidence to do by saying I’m great at my job etc etc. Has also made slightly strange comments on teams chat (maybe ny mind is in the gutter but these seem like comments that are double entendres)

Cut to last couple of weeks I have a new supervisor who has been bouncing back 75% of my work. Things that the manager and previous supervisor weren’t bouncing back at all. from my first 1:1 with her it’s clear that no one has bothered to check a lot of my work or they haven’t noticed my mistakes (ever!) She was the first person who actually listened when I said I was struggling (before I’ve always got the “you’re fine” thing.) and was very proactive with the whole let’s make this better… I basically feel like the last year has been a waste of my time.

I think this place is a shit show. I think the manager is probably the worst manager I’ve had. Husband thinks I’m making a drama about it and that I should just take it for what it is-a flexible handy ok paid job. But I like to think I’m doing a decent job of things and I’m not even sure this is possible at this place .

So am I being over the top or is this an unusually extra shit show (I’ve got 20 years experience under my belt so I think I have my answer but any insight would be good thanks).

What are you making recommendations on?

So you were not given feedback by your first 2 managers but your current manager is giving you feedback on 75% of your work by bouncing it back.

How is she the worst manager ever? Did you expect your work to be perfect from day 1?

What sort of feedback is she giving on your work and is it fair?

Adapting houses so that people can use them with wheelchairs etc so it’s quite important we get it right 🤷‍♀️

I didn’t expect my work to be perfect from day 1. But I think it would have been reasonable to have feedback/ training/ support on my work to help me improve. I have literally had “ you’re/ it’s fine” every time I’ve done anything.

Now it’s apparent that I’m missing the point and it hasn’t been fine as my new supervisor is actually looking at what I’m doing.

Worst manager I’ve had- that’s my opinion-in terms of I have not been managed. I just get annual leave requests etc approved - that seems to be the managers job here 🤣

Is this a Local Authority job ? If so it sounds normal. I left my job at the LA as it was chaos.

I am currently job seeking and I see that role advertised almost daily on indeed, along with Hilary's Blinds. It makes me think the turnover must be very high to be advertised so often. My vote is shit show.

This new manager sounds like the best manager you have had so far. She wants to get things right for the client and she wants to help you to learn how to do your job better - which is also a goal of yours. Be a team with her, learn from her and feel confident that she is upskilling you with every correction.

You got it in 1. I worked for a district before and honestly it wasn’t this bad. Now this is a county and I have put it down to covid/ remote working etc but yeah it’s horrendous. I’ve never felt incompetent at a job and yh I feel like I don’t stand a chance here tbh .

The new manager hopefully can answer all your previous questions, be honest with them on what's hapoened before.

It does sound awful. The new manager sounds like they might be better, for me though it all depends on how they interact and support you from now on. If they’re providing constructive feedback and suggestions for improvements that’s great, if they’re just bouncing everything back with no explanation then that’s not very fair if nobody has ever shown you the right way to do it.

I think you need to bite the bullet and have a meeting with the new manager to go over what has gone on and how you can improve your work to meet expectations. Sounds as though you've not been properly managed, but now are.

Manager & supervisor are separate roles, as I read it?

OP finds current supervisor good, but manager not.

Yes thank you I’ve done this. So my new supervisor is actually my managers manager. I told her snippets of the last year and that I’m really struggling with it etc. think she could see that I’m pretty much at the point of leaving. She apologised for the whole thing and was like “ let’s turn this round” and I think she can see that the things I’ve done are genuinely gaps (canyons) in knowledge . So yup for the first time I am feeling like I have a little faith in someone.

Yup she’s not just bouncing stuff back Willy nilly she’s giving very specific feedback. The feedback that I think I should have had for the last year. Thanks for your comment.

I know the answer is to work with this woman and I will and it’ll make or break this job but I just feel so bloody despondent about it all tbh.

Yup you read it right. The manager was also my supervisor for a while, then got passed to someone one grade above me who’s now left. Now my managers manager is my supervisor. But my manager does still deal with me directly - for example will help out if supervisors off or if I ask q in a teams chat that he knows the answer to .

Yup I think you’re right. Of a team of around 15 , 4 have left in the last year and one’s been off sick for 6 months. So don’t apply 😂 good luck with the job hunt x

Yep. I started a LA job two months ago. Almost entirely home working as manager doesn’t like her commute. No processes written down. No idea how to do key tasks. No one to turn to to ask. Everything is taking ages as I struggle through trying to work things out myself ( and often failing). It’s awful!

If managers want to do home working they need to put the hard work into setting things up so homeworking works for staff and especially new starts. Not just laugh hilariously when a ten minute task takes literally all day as a new start struggles with working out how to do it.

I work in the rail industry, now knocking 25+ yrs experience.
During covid we all were made redundant from my old company and I started a new role with my present company and I was mainly wfh which was horrendous, even with my experience it was nigh on impossible to learn my new role, my stress levels were through the roof.
However, I digress, now back to you!
You've had a pretty shit time of it but it sounds like you now have a good supervisor.
Draw a line under the past, you can't change it, don't let it feel like a waste, turn it around.
If you want to stay in your role, move forward with your new supervisor, learn from her and you may find you enjoy your job, it certainly sounds like a worthwhile role.
You could leave and get another job that is worse than this one so in your shoes I'd give this one a good go, if it doesn't work out then leave.

Yup this is it! The amount of very simple things that are not at all simple due to working from home. Like finding a bit of paperwork on the system took an hour and a half at the beginning. It’s obviously got quicker than that but a couple of weeks back someone showed me a shortcut. I 100% put this down to working from home as this will something id have learned within days or weeks in office.

O and the people just turning a blind eye and then saying “ o why didn’t you ask?” Well I didn’t even know it’s a thing so 🤷‍♀️

Ps good luck I hope this gets better, or you find something else.

This reads to me like you'd rather just carry on as you were and not have anyone challenge you, but there are real, vulnerable people suffering from the services failings.

Grasp the learning opportunities with both hands.

They are. So I would’ve thought there’s a responsibility on the employee to train and support staff to make sure they have enough knowledge/skills etc to do the job. I’ve been doing the job for the last year with very little support offered upfront and so I just went with what I thought was for the best . People have been supposedly checking and signing off my work with no comments, no problems. Literally not one piece of feedback about how to change things. When I’ve asked to talk through bits of work I get told ‘see you know what you’re doing’ as if I’ve been overthinking it and didn’t need to talk through it at all.

I am not sure what else I could have done to be honest l. You know what you know. You’re sat at home, not hearing other people’s conversations, so not learning from that 🤷‍♀️

Maybe it sounds like I’m blaming other people but the supervisor has taken over someone else and says there are the same issues there too which makes me think I’m not entirely the problem.

And yup you’re right I need to look at this as learning opportunity to actually learn the job. But I feel so done with it I’m struggling. But yeah.

@Cutlosses oh no you're absolutely not the problem, and I get that it's completely deflating that you've spent a year muddling through with no support and now you're being told what you've done is wrong. I 100% understand that.

Hopefully this supervisor will whip everyone into shape because it certainly wont only be you.