Howdy all. I’m at a loss for what to do and thought maybe this subreddit could offer some advice or just words of encouragement..
I’ve been at my job about 2 years. I love my job. I have always been the kind of person who gets into a role, learns it inside and out and wants to help others succeed. I’ve been in management positions, but this role was just a clerk basically. All that being said, I did my job well. I had never had any complaints and my previous boss had gone above and beyond to accommodate me after I had to have a hand surgery just because she’d rather I be there to help a little than not at all. I was valuable to the team, had a lot of responsibilities and executed them well. I trained other employees to do the same, never an issue. Then about 3 months ago out of nowhere my boss gets fired and a new guy comes in. Having been a new manager to an established team before I expected that there would be a period of time where the new boss, let’s call him Jose, was setting expectations and standards and making sure we all knew how to do our jobs correctly. So for the first few weeks I let him tell me how to do things I already knew, and tried to have conversations with him about how I do things, and how much I appreciated his communication with me about his standards.
At this point I’ll mention the woman. Let’s call her Esme. They are both from the same country and only speak in another language with each other. They have pet names for each other, and it is painfully obvious that they are an item. Esme has also called Jose her husband to people outside of our department. Esme is in the same role as I am, and Jose is also her boss.
It did not take long for both him and Esme to start hounding me, for lack of a better word. At first I just took it in stride and was accepting maybe I had forgotten x,y,z even though I do those things every day. Or maybe I just wasn’t doing it how he wanted, so I’d ask and get clarification. But would continue to have conversations about x,y,z being incorrect. As time went on the things I was being talked to about were things I absolutely knew I was completing. I even set out “traps” to see if Esme was causing these problems. It’s hard to explain without going into excruciating detail but multiple times over the course of 2 weeks my work has been messed with by Esme. And then when I tried to bring up the issues with Jose, he will say straight to my face that she didn’t do it. And when I bring the issues up I am not being accusatory or even mentioning her name, I just say “whoever completed ‘x’ in my days off did this and I need you to address it so it stops” and in turn he blames the issue on me. And then to add, he will “remind me” to make sure I do ‘x’ correctly. On top of that, I do all my work and when I am done I get to finish what Esme didn’t do, and then finish the day tasks. Jose still thinks I am lazy, doing my job and hers.
The only other person that works directly with all of us has had the same issues with him and her. We’ll call him David. He is above Esme in position but not equal to Jose. David doesn’t speak strong English but has been in his role for many years and is very good at his job. He’s so smart and observant, and when he tries to tell Jose that Esme has done something incorrectly, Jose will tell him no, and argue that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Our direct manager and district manager know about Jose and Esme being an item. They have even accommodated them to have the same day off.
I am on mobile so apologies if the layout is rough but I just needed to get this out there. I am so sick of being treated like I can’t do my job when I am doing more than the person who gets all the credit. I am so lost. I’ve never felt so paranoid and anxious at work. I am not into tooting my own horn but I have never been accused of being lazy or slow or not working. I don’t know what I can do. I can’t afford to just quit.