I work for a startup and my department's budget shrank so I was told these are my last couple of weeks.
I said sure that's fine (I was planning on leaving anyway) and executed my remaining deliverables. My manager is a nightmare with constant micromanaging and undercutting everyone in the department, even going as far as to stunt their growth because they want to be the only ones the founders like. All in all I was happy for a clean break.
Fast forward to today (weekend) and I get inundated with Slack messages between my manager and the founder & CEO where my manager is actively telling them that I didn't execute any deliverables properly for this project or the last project and that they've been chasing me up and I've dropped the ball. The thread ended with my manager saying that I should forward all materials over and they'll do it themselves.
I haven't replied because it's the weekend, and also because I'm shocked at the context that's missing:
- the last project I handled was also the FIRST big project I took over because they FIRED the OG lead 2 months before delivery and didn't want to hire someone new- I was upfront that it was my first big project and things would go wrong but I was happy to learn. This was rewarded by me taking on the second project
-the second project which is design-focused has been a nightmare to manage because instead of liaising with the designer I've been told I need to get sign off from my manager, the CEO and the CFO but I'm “not allowed” to talk to the CEO only my manager can.
- a big thing that came up was that I never created a tracker for this project- I did. I submitted it to the founder
Everything for project 2 was delivered, the delays can directly be attributed to my manager either forgetting I submitted the work or endless unnescessary rounds of feedback from the CFO. The designs were delivered- they just don't like them and are demanding I ask for a refund.
I've also been told I need to prep a report on what exactly went wrong in my planning, etc.
How do I address this in the groupchat? I'm leaving soon and I have other people I can ask for a reference but it bothers me that my professionalism is being called into question and I don't want people thinking I'm a slob. Worth mentioning also I'm still newish to the working world as a recent graduate.