Hi everyone! Writing this on mobile so sorry for formatting blah blah. ps: first few paragraphs are explaining my work situation, so if you want just the meat, skip down a bit.
I would really love peoples opinions on my work situation, as I really don’t know what to think or how to approach my current situation.
To preface this post, I’ve worked for a “legal registry” for about 7 years now, and have worked my way up the ranks, starting out as a courier, and then moving into office responsibilities, and finally I have been the office coordinator for 2 years. I’ve been extremely loyal to this company, even returning after a 3 month Covid layoff, and being here through a high turnover the past few years.
The company itself is “family run”, which knowing this sub, we all know is typically a red flag. Regardless, my first years of employment with this company were relatively good. One thing the company struggles with though, is compensation. In the 7 years I’ve been here, I’ve received 2 raises, and I have had to ask for both, and was never offered a raise, regardless of how good my performance was. This past year has been hell. Not just because of Covid reasons, but because we have had such a high turnover, it’s not even funny. I’ve taken on multiple roles, without a raise, and have learned to deal with it the best I can.
I would say that I am definitely in the realm of, “work at the level you’re paid”. I do what my job description says, and I do it well. I work in a smaller branch of the company that is located in another city. Our branch (up until a few weeks ago) had no management in house, and pretty much self managed, with a little bit of guidance from myself as the coordinator.
At the beginning of 2021, I was offered to take part in a “Management Training Program”, which was something our HR manager created to train new managers, that would take place over the period of a year. I was asked to apply to this opportunity by our CEO, so I did. The short version of what happened, was that I would sit in an hour long meeting twice a week for training, and then current management would delegate jobs to me to be done. This was all while I was still maintaining my current jobs, and also, there wouldn’t be a pay raise until the end of the training. I did this for about 3 months, before I realized I was just doing free management and extra work, without a pay increase, and was just completely being taken advantage of. I resigned the opportunity soon after, and explained to my CEO honestly why I did.
I thought things would go back to normal after this, but apparently I was wrong. A couple months after that, I started noticing that some of my roles were being delegated to other people, and my role was rapidly becoming quite mundane. I won’t lie, I didn’t really mind at first, because it gave me free time to do some studying on the side for my IT tests that I wanted to take later in 2021 or early 2022. In the past, my employer seemed to get really excited about hearing about their employees personal and professional endeavours outside of the company, but as soon as they heard about me studying to get my IT Certifications, things seemed to change.
I was pulled into a performance meeting with our assistant CEO, and asked about my commitment to the company, where I simply explained that I was interested in IT, so I thought I’d give it shot. I made sure to mention I was still committed to working for the company, and that if anything ever changed, they would be well notified and I wouldn’t leave them hanging. This really seemed to irk them, and the response I received was, “Well it may work for you now, but that doesn’t mean that it works for us”. My response to this was, “I understand, I just wanted to make sure you guys knew my situation, as I respect you both and the company”. I also made mention in this meeting that I was wanting to buy a house, and in order to do this I would need to make a bit more to finance this.
From then on, even while filling the roles I always did, I started receiving complaints about my work performance, and how little help I provided, but I never knew where these complaints were coming from, as it was always just my HR manager, and the CEO relaying them. I made sure to even ask around the office to see how people felt, as I have a good relationship with everyone I supervise, and no one had any idea about the source of the complaints.
Fast forward to Friday last week, and the CEO makes an appearance at our branch. He pulls everyone in the office one at a time into a meeting and checks up on them. He then pulls me in last, but this time it’s with him, as well as the HR manager. So I sit down and I get the classic questions like, “How are things going here? Anything new?…” After answering these by saying, “good, everything is normal and running smoothly”, I get asked about the status of my IT exams. I explain to them that exams had been cancelled due to Covid, so I never had the opportunity to take them, and would have to wait for the next testing rotation, which would be in the spring. The conversation starts to heat up, and my CEO starts talking about how I seem checked out, and how I don’t ever reach out for work. I explain to him that my role is a branch coordinator, meaning that I am committed to helping the team locally, and not our team in our larger branch in another city. I also explain how multiple times a day I walk around the office and check up on everyone to see who needs help and who doesn’t. It isn’t until after that checkup that I offer my help to the other branch. Long story short, CEO accuses me of just showing up to collect a paycheque, and that my heart really isn’t in it anymore. Mind you, I am very introverted. I don’t give off super motivated body language, but anyone who had worked directly with me over the years would know that it isn’t reflective at all of my work ethic. I explain this all to him and say that I am committed and do care, but I just can’t pretend to be someone I’m not, and I also can’t help everyone at the same time. I also say that I would take his criticism to heart and try to accommodate the changes he was asking me to make.
Long story short, I’m told that “trying” and “maybe” isn’t good enough, and I either will or I won’t make these changes, which I respond and say, “I say I’ll try, because I still don’t really understand what your asking me to do”. He responds with, “I want you to work harder”. At this point I just start agreeing with everything that’s being said, as I can tell he is starting to get a little worked up, which is followed by:
CEO – “You just don’t seem like you want to fight, which is really concerning to me.”
Me – “I’m not going to fight you. I explained that I am not checked out, and that I still work hard to maintain this office, but you aren’t hearing that.”
CEO – “I’m not going to be a second choice to your IT, so don’t do me any favours by sticking around if you don’t want to be here.”
Me – “Again, I don’t really know where you are getting this idea from. Ask anyone in this office how they feel about my performance and commitment to them, and they’ll all tell you what I’m telling you.”
CEO – “Clearly this isn’t going anywhere, so I’m going to end this meeting, so we will reconvene and re-evaluate next week.”
I feel like now I’m just stuck in limbo for a week, where everything I do is constantly monitored and scrutinized, and I’m just waiting for the inevitable layoff/firing at the end of the week. How do I approach this? Do I just quit? Wait it out? I’d love opinions.
ps: I’m writing this at 345 am. If there are any holes in the story, or anything needs explaining, please let me know and I will respond when I wake up.