That's what I wish I could say to my boss, but I can't.
It's a long post but I promess you it's a rollercoaster.
I'm a young female webdesigner working for a bank in a marketing department. I work with my colleagues and help them on the sketch and programming. However, most of my work is not related with my abilities but that's ok, as long as someone sits down and teaches me how to do a specific task.I also am a very emotional person and I really focus not only of doing my job good but also to hear and have my colleagues comfortable to give constructive critics and ask for opinions and ideas about how they envision their projects.
Boss manages the team on damage control mode. Basically we are always late on our tasks as a department and won't accommodate most of requests made by other departments. It feels like a war every meeting we have with other departments and I personally like to build a strong effective communication channel and usually, meet halfway on the requests so everyone (or most of the people) get something in return.
On my first day I was included in a cool youth project, along with a more senior colleague, “CA”, to show me how the not-programming work is done. Cool, I'll be doing my thing! CA works on the bank for a long time but got in this team at the same month as me. CA also had her big project and things were running smoothly on a side-by-side model.
However, two weeks into my work I got called in into CA's project to help out by putting out fires. We started to miss the deadlines on both projects and CA's took over mine. I stopped working on my thing because that other project was a big deal and heads were about to roll because of that. That's fine, mine's going out later anyway so I'll have time to work on mine, even though I was missing my deadlines as well, as per boss's request. This started to have some minor impact on my work, because I was always being asked to help out on a million things. I only have two hands so started doing A LOT of OT, unpaid OT, to make the ends meet, while Boss and CA sold out the project as the easiest, coolest and quickest thing to do, basically daydreaming with everyone else while a dumpster fire was breaking out.
3 months into my new job, I learned a software that's worse than the first Windows PC, on my own, when the learning curve of it was long and steep. I got really pro at solving problems quickly and efficiently and was proud of it.
CA goes on vacation for a week and I had to fill in the blank and it was hard but also, awesome. Got a lot of VITAL structural pending work done, got really comfortable with the other teams and I had become a somewhat of a leader/”IT Expert” and when CA came back and I handed out the work, we had a huge fallout. Tried multiple times to know what I did wrong and no reply. Got completely ignored, CA's treatment towards me changed from a happy friendly tone to a harsh “I AM THE BOSS HERE” kinda attitude. My younger colleagues noticed but made nothing of it.
Meanwhile, my work in my project was quickly going downhill and my intervention on my own work kept being delayed.
Early in this year, CA's thing caught fire and burned everything and everyone. Everyone started to get angry at CA, my own team environment changed and looked like we had a huge elephant in the room. Boss called me out about my way of speaking to CA even though I never changed that but got tired of explaining the same thing 5 or 6 times. CA felt entitled to that and reinforced that she would only stop asking when she understood. That took a long whole day!
Team members started to understand that CA's behaviour was not correct and started to side more or less with me when I explained my side of the story (only when asked about it) and how it correlated with CA's behaviour and actions towards other team members. Eventually, CA made a face when wasn't liking to hear bad reviews about her project and management and that face was called “assface”. Whenever that ghostly facial expression appeared, we would laugh about it.
Boss removed CA from my project and I was alone doing stuff for the first time, without anyone teaching or showing me, basically fending for myself. Not a single senior team member was able to help me out because of CA's project that was more important.
I received materials that I was never able to get in a timely fashion because of my workload. I even worked weekends.
Fast forward to the last few weeks, CA's project finally aired, at least partially, always on a damage control mode that consists of delaying unimportant tasks until later, those same tasks eventually become urgent.
My project is a total mess. I'm doing everyone's job without really knowing how to, setting some expectations, hearing constant complaints about my way (instructed by my boss) of doing things even though everyone on my project knows is not my fault. Now, instead of months to do it, I have days.
I, as an emotional and extremely tired person, started breaking down when the pressure is too much to handle. I put hundreds of free OT on CA's work and was awarded with more work. Now the heads turn on me while the other project calmed down, at least for now.
My survival work got criticized, dowplayed and I got called out for doing things (that no one taught me how to do) “wrong”. I am a mess. I scheduled my vacations and had to reschedule to work and knowing that I'm literally overtired. If being tired was a person, that was me. The younger team members are supporting me but I'm done. Today was the final straw.
I gave everything to save my boss's and CA's neck, I gave my vacation days that I was planning on using them just to rest my head and I feel that it wasn't good enough, appreciated and recognized by my boss. Today I got called out again for fending for myself on a couple of tasks that none of the seniors was available to help me with, that I should run things to my boss (I did but got postponed, sometimes took weeks to get something checked by my boss), for trying to get work done alone and that I can't let the other teams have their way.
Note that I was in a warzone trying to make peace. I was with a lot, lot, lot of work, barely having time to review anything, still being called to put out some fires so OF COURSE that I couldn't held 4 hour meetings discussing stuff. I just want to get it done.
Now that my boss saw me breaking down again and having 8 days to finish a month's worth of tasks in small period of time, busy colleagues got called in to help me and like the night and day, I was removed from CA's but still being requested to do work that is unpleasant for other people.
I can handle critics about my work but when it comes to my dedication, I put my heart and soul. I focus not only on my work but also on the people that I'm working with and hearing that my boss thinks that I'm learning while complaining about my work that I had to do on my own for the first time, I feel utterly ridiculous, exhausted and demotivated.
My boss wants the highway, now complaints that work wasn't handled properly, that people did their work wrong, complaining about a bunch of things that I could've done if I had the time. It's a mess, I'm trying to deal with my anxiety but I have a TMJ dysfunction and it only makes things worse. I'm so disappointed. Without notice, I got downgraded. I review materials about my own work that I know I could've done better, but have no decision over it and I am mentally spiraling down to a state of zombie. I'm becoming hopeless.
My boss is a great person but is not willing to hear critics about her way of doing things. I still hold on because I have plans for the future and working on bank makes it easier to achieve them but everyday I think about quitting. I feel ashamed that I let myself breakdown like this, that I got downgraded for doing the best I could as a junior member of the team and I'm not calling the shots anymore. If anything, I would've accept tutoring to get work done but in a couple of hours I stopped running my side of the project alone because of my honest junior mistakes.
I don't want to work, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I could've done better. I did my best and it wasn't enough. Now there's a senior member running this, my project got divided within my team, and with my boss, well I don't know what to do. I'm a temp worker and have everything to loose here. My boss wants everything her way while giving the freedom of doing things my way. Wants me to impose and complaint about the work that has to be done without recognizing her role in this. I feel broken inside, weak, powerless. Doesn't want me to make comments while wanting me to make comments that please her only.
Again, my boss is a great person but at managing people, lacks skills and works on a daily basis without seeing the big picture. This mess could've been completely avoided if I had worked on my tasks when they were handed, once a week. I got completely shattered with CA's project and today I felt humiliated by my boss for saving her butt.
Like any other boss, when it comes to their own job, they forget that they work with people that are demotivated, overly tired, confused and without a clear guidance and knowledge on how to do their job, and this is my story on how I filled that gap when things were looking like titanic and wasn't able to work on my own stuff.
I rescheduled my vacation. I'm tired. I have to put out some fires and to do some desk work or otherwise my department will be called out. I don't have time for it and am avoiding OT as much as possible but it's hard. I don't want let people down because of my boss. I don't get payed enough to do this and I needed to put this off my chest.
How do I deal with this emotions? I feel like my “poker face” face turned off and I can't turn it back on. I feel so so weak.
What to I do, how do I handle this? Should I quit? I feel this will be the norm in this place and I can't work like that.
Edit: reviewed the text and cleared some mistakes.