Hey all –
Long-time lurker, first-time poster and could use some insight/perspective/shared experiences.
I (35F) am currently the team lead for a help desk at a state government department. I have been on the team since 2017, and the lead for 2 years. The department hired a new supervisor for our team and he started about 2 weeks after I became the lead. He was from the county, so was brand new to our department. It took awhile for him to get the lay of the land.
When I was officially team lead, we were short staffed. I was told by my manager that I was to function in the same capacity to make sure our phones were covered until we could hire new staff. I helped get the new supervisor settled and once we hired my replacement, I trained her in. All while being on phones pretty much full time. We were also given a temp position, which I helped train in as well. I had to be available to both of them for questions.
Last year, I was also royally fucked with by supervisors and managers in another area. They ousted me from a program I facilitated and dismantled it. I had hopes of revamping this program as it really needed it, but because I was still functioning as a full-time phone advisor, I didn't have the capacity. They pushed me out of meetings after being told to include me, and made decisions behind my back. This severely fucked with my confidence and reality. It was several months of obstruction of job duties. I filed a complaint with HR which probably went nowhere. The stress was so bad that at one point I went to the hospital because I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Nope, just stress. I thought my new boss supported me and was advocating for me, but after more things have come to light, I believe he let it happen and let me take the fall.
A couple months after this all came to a head, one of the systems we support was rewritten and released. We had to guide people through using the new system, which was terribly flawed and had an insane amount of defects. So I had to continue being on phones to help support the team through that. A lot of the defects were worked out and things calmed down by the fall. Still a lot of things wrong, but it had at least stabilized and gotten better.
Once our new staff were taking the majority of their own calls, I started taking myself off phones more. Our previous team lead was only on phones as needed when we were short, otherwise she was working on other things to help support the team. Both she and the previous supervisor left within 2 weeks of each other and those positions were vacant for almost a year. So there was no one there to train me or our new supervisor in our roles when we started. I felt like I was making things up as I went along, functioning as best I knew how with zero direction or guidance from my supervisor. After being so royally fucked over by management, and feeling incredibly burnt out trying to support EVERYONE on the team with getting ZERO support for myself, I kinda checked out. I was not as productive or engaged as I could have been last winter. My teammates picked up on it and complained. I don't blame them.
My supervisor addressed it with me this past spring. I had a meltdown because I had felt so ignored/invisible/unvalued. I did not take it well, and I am not proud of that. However my supervisor assured me it was a safe space and he wants to help improve things. I took it on the chin and decided to turn this into an opportunity of growth and development. I told him that I didn't know what was expected of me because he had never gone through my position with me. I had been lead for over a year and a half and he had barely given me any guidance. So we worked out expectations and other things for me to be working on. I started to reclaim the program I lost, developing my ideas that I've had for years and presenting it to different areas to garner support. Feedback was very positive and people were excited for the changes. I felt like things were improving, that I finally had some purpose again. I felt like I was finally being invested in.
Then things turned around again. I know I did a 180* in my performance, but I was still being told that there was a rift and my supervisor felt like the team was against me and I was against the team. The problem was that he was not drawing clear boundaries around my position, despite me asking him several times to talk to the team about it. He never did. I was trying to protect my time so I could work on things, but I was constantly interrupted with questions or being asked to hop on phones. There are other people on the team that can also hop in, yet I felt I was the only one expected to. I pushed back on this, saying it can't just be me to help on phones, that I felt I needed protected time so I could dig into things without being interrupted. Such as updating our procedures, our known problem list, digging into more complex problems and following up on defects, things like that. I have a hard time doing that when I never know when I'm going to be pulled on phones. When I'm on phones, I can't work on projects because I'm lucky if I get 10 min before my phone is ringing again.
On top of that, my supervisor has not once signed into phones in the 2 years he's been our supervisor. He hasn't even signed into the systems we support in about that long, so he is no longer active and hasn't been since January 2022. My coworker H was given the supervisor role for our phones when our old boss retired, because someone needed it and she was the most knowledgeable for that. We both have been pushing my boss to get this security himself and to start signing in. He has been telling me for months that he has been working on that, but it shouldn't be taking months.
A couple of weeks ago, he yet again told me that he had been getting complaints from the team about me, saying that I was unapproachable and they never felt like they could come to me with things. I told him I helped them whenever they reached out. I know I have been butting heads with the new staff I trained in, as I have been getting increasingly frustrated with how she shuts down at any redirection and feel like she's trying to make everyone bend to her completely and is unwilling to meet on anything. He has been giving her too long of a leash and I feel he has been encouraging this behavior, despite telling me he's not. She has been passive aggressive with me, and has been really hard to manage taking questions from her. I just didn't know what else to do. I tried so hard to support her. My boss and I would have check ins with her and after an hour of talking, she still said she didn't feel like she was being heard. I just couldn't anymore. She said she felt more comfortable going to my one coworker D, so whatever, go to her then I don't know what else you want from me. It felt like no matter what approach I took with her, it was wrong and she wasn't happy about something. She has been having a hard time being independent in her work and we are too short staffed for that to be a thing. I had a one-on-one with her to clear the air and both talk about what was frustrating and try to veer back on course. I felt it went well, though she still doesn't come to me for things. I have done my best to be available to her. At some point it can no longer be me that's the problem, right?
Anyway, things came to a head again this week. On Monday, our phone application was given an upgrade and we were given new extensions. We didn't hear about this until Friday afternoon because the only person who got the information was my coworker H who had the supervisor role. But she's not our supervisor, not even a lead, so she didn't know she was responsible for sending the information out to the rest of the team until our phone guy in IT messaged her directly. My boss never said ANYTHING and STILL hasn't. Between my coworker H and I, we were luckily able to get people signed in on Monday but it was stressful. He wasn't even in office. He let me and her take the fall for it, never once said thank you, and never once addressed it with the team. He has been silent.
I am so fed up. On Tuesday, I met with my manager again to discuss these issues. That he doesn't follow through on things (I often have to remind him to follow-up and respond to things). That he still hasn't signed into phones despite telling me he's been working on it for months. Luckily my coworker H had pushed him to get the supervisor role because she was really not happy that she was thrown under the bus like that. Our phone guy in IT said all he had to do was submit a ticket to them to get it started. But I thought he was already working on it????
Later on Tuesday, I had a 1-on-1 with my boss. I was short and I was direct. He told me he wanted me on phones 2 days a week. I asked him what did that look like? Was that just when we were short? Was that the same 2 days a week? Am I not to be interrupted on the other days? What are the protocols? He had no answer, and said he'd write up some protocols. (I highly doubt he will, not to mention I've been back on phones nearly every day for over a month because we lost another coworker V to a different position. She left because he was treating her terribly.) He was about to end the meeting but I told him I had a couple of things too. I pushed him about our phone upgrade because he didn't even address it with me. I told him I felt like he let me and my coworker H take the fall and has said nothing about it to the team. I pushed him to get on phones ASAP. I told him I felt like he had been lying to me. He then flipped on me and told me he had been getting a lot of complaints about me, that I was a bully, I was unapproachable, that I burn bridges, no one can come to me for things, and that I'm condescending. I asked him if every person on the team has complained about me and he told me yes. He told me that in the exit interview he had with my coworker V, she told him she felt like she could never come to me for things. Which I knew was a lie because I helped her on many occasions and we left on good terms. Not only that, but you shouldn't be breaching confidentiality like that. He again told me that the team was against me and I was against the team. I told him yet again he needs to draw clear boundaries around my position and he hasn't.
After talking to my coworker H more about things, it is becoming very clear that he is pitting people against each other. She had spoken with coworker V and she confirmed she never told him that feedback, that in fact she told him I had improved greatly. I also know my coworker H hasn't complained about me and has told me she knows she can come to me for things. And that the team doesn't hate me as he has been making me believe. I am 98% sure that he is lying about the complaints, or he's using the complaints from last winter that were already addressed with me. Or he's using complaints from the one new hire and saying it's the whole team, even though I already addressed things with her directly. Or those are all things he thinks about me but he's hiding behind the team. He didn't start this 1-on-1 to talk about complaints or feedback, he only flipped on me once I pushed him to be more accountable. He told me that he knew I was meeting with the manager, and that he had already told her what he thought I was going to her about. I told him I can't function in this environment, it is becoming toxic. He told me I can go somewhere else then.
I met with my manager again last night, and she told me he never discussed with her what he thought he was going to her about, but he did know we were meeting. Whatever, I never asked for it to be confidential so I'm not going to stick on that point. The problem is that he used it as an intimidation tactic. I told her about his lies and asked for him to be investigated. I told her I no longer feel safe reporting to him and do not feel comfortable going to my 1-on-1s with him. Performance reviews are right around the corner and I fear I am going to be put on a PIP. I have NEVER had a PIP, in fact my last review was exceeds expectations. I have always gotten Meets or Exceeds expectations on all of my reviews for the past 12 years I've been working in this field. I told her I didn't feel comfortable with him giving my review alone.
I just fear that he's going to be using all of the things I've talked about with him against me, despite telling me it was a safe space. He told me that he likes that I'm direct and give honest feedback, that it's ok that I've lost my cool a few times because it's a safe space. I fear he's going to say I'm insubordinate. I fear he has been positioning me to be the bad actor when it has been him all along.
What the fuck do I do????