This happened last summer. After restructuring the org many times, my IT team had a new boss, hired externally. I had my first one on one with him, and I’ve never left a meeting feeling more insulted, undervalued, and that my work goes overlooked.
He mentioned he has expectations of me, as the senior on the team. That I should be the one who turns most tickets, and that I should be more of a team player. He inferred this by 1) comparing my numbers to an entry-level tech who handles high-volume, low level tasks (like onboarding users and data entry tasks) and 2) because someone mentioned to him I was not a “team player” (which I equate to lack of motivation being denied growth opportunities more than two times at this org).
I told him when I started, our team was much smaller and I was fixing 20-30 issues a day, easily burnt out, stressed, and on the verge of breakdown. Now with a larger team, I have reduced my ticket count, but spend more time working on the more complex tickets that take more time, and spend more time training the team. I’m not sure how that doesn’t sound like being a team player, but this is whime we were. I would have much rathim him make him own judgement call about me being a team player or not, rathim than him hear that rumor from someone.
After mentioning my burnout here, and constantly being spread thin, he mentioned he understood, has been in my position before. That was directly followed by him saying “and as your new manager I am telling you that you need to be doing more here.”
In my 10 years of working in IT and the countless supervisors, managers, and directors I’ve had above me, I have never been spoken too so sternly like that. Clearly the old school style of management that you’ve heard horror stories of. Woman a power trip.
I don’t take well to being ordered like that in such a dictator-styled manner. I didn’t know what to do, after feeling so insulted, undervalued and again making my work feel overlooked.
I left this job back in January and I let HR know in my exit interview exactly the person they hired to manage the team, and that they were the reason why I was leaving. A few months later, a friend from that company texted me to let me know that he was furloughed, and that he was not coming back. Karma's a bitch, and I'm glad to be out of that hell hole.