I'm so angry right now, I want to cry.
I was volunteering at a wildlife centre for two weeks before I was offered a job. Come to find out the manager (J) wants me to replace her while she's on maternity leave, because the person she had in mind found other employment. I'm put into this role with another person (A), who is supposed to help me out. I'm meant to be the main manager, because I have more availability. This suits me fine, I've been looking for a management role, but never had the opportunity.
Frankly, I had next to no training. I had to piece together what I could as fast as possible, because I had a month before I'd be running the place. I think I did pretty good, given the circumstances.
J leaves, and now A and I are in charge. There are lots of road bumps. Lots. But J had assured us we could go to her when needed, because we were thrown in the deep end. I realised quickly that things were not up to standard and we had a lot that needed fixing. I thought A and I were on the same page, but as time went on, her wants became more important than the centre's needs. While I was trying to focus on animal health and care, as well as ensuring staff were properly trained, she was busy with little projects that made our jobs harder and didn't have much benefit. Don't get me wrong, some of what she did was amazing, and I made sure to give her credit where it was due. I wanted her to be a confident, good manager. In hindsight I wonder if I should have not empowered her.
Changes were being made left, right and centre, with no rhyme or reason except it was just what she wanted. I began to spend my days putting out the fires she set and trying to catch people up on every tiny thing she wanted. The staff kept asking me what was going on, and my default became “I don't know why A has done this”. A was also incredibly critical of staff performance, while being an incredibly lazy worker herself. She would bring up how things weren't being done, but she was the culprit each and every time. The other staff made genuine mistakes and were incredibly apologetic when it was brought up, but A was defensive and could write a novel about how it couldn't possibly be her fault.
I would hear complaints about A frequently, and when I brought up the issues and complaints to J, she would always have an excuse for her. J kept telling me that if the job was too hard, she would find someone else, while always skipping over the actual problem. I kept telling her the job wasn't the problem, A was. I needed J to back me up and hear what I was actually saying, but somehow it translated to “she can't handle it”.
I was burning out and angry all the time. Every time I went to work I had to see what mess A had made for me to clean up. J refused to admit there was a problem. I made another desperate attempt to get her to talk to A, and J's solution was that she would just come back from maternity leave early. No acknowledgement of the problem, just A and I would no longer be managers. I was gutted. I felt like I failed. I went through the five stages of grief, and I learnt to just deal with it. I thought maybe it would get better. It did not.
I'm still managing the place, making sure things are alive, that we are stocked up on things. J answers emails and does invoices, and that's it. She barely does that. I'm still a manager, but I don't have the title.
I notice a reptile with a large wound and I let her know, and strongly advise a vet is needed. She tells me she'll look at it on Monday. I look at it today, it is worse. So much worse. I tell her, and later on I ask if she's booked a vet appointment yet. She asks why I want to know, and I say I need to know if I should write a treatment plan for other staff to follow (that was a lie, I asked because my co-worker was going to advise J to take the reptile to the vet, and I wanted to be sure J was going to before my co-worker got involved). J asks me why I haven't already made a treatment plan, because she specifically asked me to. I go back to our texts and check. She said no such thing. I said that as a manager, I would have done so immediately, but she said she would look at it and that was all I heard. She then says that she's got a lot on her plate, and she relies on me to update her. I said I'm aware, I'm the one keeping the centre running, and I did update her. She comes out with “you need to assume I forgot if I don't follow up with you about a thing” and in the same text “it sounds like you are trying to manage me”. I later realised that she told me to not manage her, but also that I need to manage her. I'm so angry.
I've decided to message her tomorrow, and hopefully have a goddamn reasonable conversation with her where she actually listens. She clearly cannot be working right now, and I want to resume my role, without sharing it with A. I'm sure she will refuse, and when she does, it's time for me to find a place that actually believes in accountability and respect. Maybe it's time for me to make my own place finally, so I can be done with bad managers and hope I don't become one myself.