I had a meeting with my manager a few days ago and she basically told me I am not doing enough work.
I want to preface this by saying, I work in marketing. At any given time, I am balancing social media, writing article, collecting and analyzing data, creating mass emails, and communicating with vendors. I have not missed a big deadline and I prioritize instead of getting stressed trying to finish everything.
All of this is important because going into the meeting I was finally all caught up and I was working through those smaller/maintenance tasks I didn’t get to before.
Sometimes I get nervous going into our meetings because she likes to put pressure on me to complete tasks by arbitrary deadlines that she sets and it gives me anxiety. But this time I wasn’t worried because I had everything done.
Basically, she told me I should be getting more work done in a 40 hour work week. I was surprised and confused. I told her my tasks usually take longer than I anticipate and I let the small things slip so I was working on those.
She was real “nice” about it so I didn’t even realize until after the meeting she was calling me lazy/unfocused. I looked at my tasks and I had not missed any recent deadlines so I’m not even sure what she was talking about.
I was pissed that she was analyzing my productive and just decided I needed to do more (when I just got caught up.) I am also about to start a big project next week, so why is it a crime to take it easy and get ahead of things for a couple days before I get crazy busy again.
Why do managers/employers feel you have to work hard every second you are on the clock? It’s not a healthy mindset. And her telling me that didn’t motivate me to go above and beyond. It actually did the opposite and I want to lean more into “quiet quitting” culture.