I’ve joined the company I am at in January of 2023 as a purchasing agent for a small chain of retail stores. My current manager was in my position previously so they have extensive experience in this position. They were promoted which opened the position I am currently in. This is the first leadership position they have held outside of the one assistant allotted to them previously. Needless to say, the level of leadership skills is severely lacking. The level of training I received was 3 days of playing with the system without any guidance, a few hours with one of the tenured assistant purchasing agents, and a few practice orders. After that, I was handed the purchasing calendar and turned loose.
I’m pretty adaptable but a lot of the little things I should have been aware of like company with extended lead times, which vendors you had to stay on top of with your orders, stores that product bypasses our distribution center, and many more.
Within 3 months, I was given a “formal growth plan” which is essentially a PIP, followed up after another 6 weeks by another formal warning or continuation of the PIP. I’ve made the changes that I thought were necessary to satisfy the “growth plan” but never seem to be enough. My manager also will take a look at reports that they won’t share with me and ask questions about why things are happening when I have no clue on how to find the reports on my own and be able to have answers.
Another issue I’ve run into multiple times since I’ve joined this company is various vendors who I have made introductions with will not reach out to me with problems but go straight to my manager. I feel this in part has to do with the fact that regardless of what I do, how many hours I work, how hard I work, questions I ask, orders are still being done on my behalf without any word or communication with me. It is incredibly infuriating to have things done outside of normal without any kind of guidance or even the slightest comment of “Hey, I’m going to do this, here’s why”
When this happens and vendors reach out to me with questions, I look stupid because I have no earthly idea.
I feel trapped because of the time my manager has spent here with the other leadership team, I have no other avenue to mention my struggles with. I brought it up to our director one time about the things I’m struggling with in terms of the leadership of my manager and that’s when I received my first “formal growth plan”
I feel like I’m set up to fail. I’m not financially able to quit and make another career change so I just feel trapped ed
Sorry for the long post and rant but I’m really hurting for some advice here.