And told me I was “making excuses…” my role I was hired to perform for my business unit was defined entirely differently than the role she expected me to perform. My prior manager was redefining my role in a way that gave me room to learn the new skills and write according to the new templates, but she left and apparently my now-manager had no idea any of this was happening. So on our first call she asked me for a plan and time frames, which I provided. On our second call she asked me about a 9 page document I successfully completed according to my prior manager’s instruction—new manager said it was “all wrong” and gave me another template. She said “as the most experienced member of the team you should have known to do this.” I told her this was not the format I previously used and it was what my old manager had worked on with me and signed off. She called me lazy and said I was making excuses. On our third call she told me in a slow, condescending tone “you really need basic writing skills.” I told her I felt that was unprofessional and condescending, and she said “I don’t care” and had me rewrite everything again according to a different template. I told her I hadn’t seen these templates and she repeated that “you should have been using them all along.” I explained that I had a different role than this, that this was not part of my job, that another team does this work, and that my writing had earned me 2 years of outstanding evaluations, maximum raises, two bonuses for outstanding performance and 2 awards for outstanding performance all in the last 6 months. She told me “I don’t care about any of that? I just need you to meet your objectives and you aren’t. I told her that my role definition doesn’t include these, and I will need a written role description with written objectives if they have changed. She told me “sometimes as adults, we just have to figure things it ourselves.” I told my manager that I don’t even have the same job title as the rest of the team, and that I’m a pay band and title step down, my promotion has been denied 3 times, and that I would like an audit because the men and younger women are being paid more than I and clearly if I have more experience and the same expectations, I should be paid the same. She ended the call.
I called HR and told her what happened and told her this feels like a setup. I said I’ve been asking for this promotion for a year and it’s been denied, but now I’m going to be held to a different job description, not given written notice of what’s changed or what my expectations are, held to the same standards as everyone else, but not paid the same. I said I’ve watched for a year as younger women and men have been hired in higher paying roles with less experience, while I have had documented success with no promotion. She said she’d talk to my manager, and I said I felt like I was being set up; I predicted that I’d end up on a performance plan and get fired. She assured me I would not.
Two weeks later, 30 day performance plan. The “objective” measure of my success? “Improved writing quality.” I responded in writing to say I believed I was being bullied and retaliated against for raising the equal pay issue and for standing up for myself against unprofessional behavior. HR advised our 3rd party ethics management company who is investigating my equal pay and retaliation claims. 40 days later? “Suspended with pay pending the outcome of the ethics investigation.”
I went from 2 awards, 2 bonuses and 2 years of excellent evaluations to fired for poor performance in 6 weeks. Corporations are trash. Can’t imagine the outcome of this ethics investigation.