I started a new job back in May as I fancied a career change at 35, attempting to transition from Sales Management to something completely new. As a result, I'm back on the bottom rung of the ladder despite seven years’ experience as a successful salesperson.
Things at my current gig have been tolerable but not great and, admittedly, I've been trying to leave since week 2 but interviewing around a 9-5 in-office job is a special kind of hell.
I started at Crappy Co. and was placed on their busiest team. I’m the same age as my (ex)-manager (S) but my teammates were 21(F) and 25(J) respectively. M was easy enough to get along with and despite our age gap we had a very similar sense of humour that got me through the otherwise agonisingly boring days. F is a grade-A kiss-up with big dreams and no discerning ability to achieve them other than bluster loudly enough and hope someone thinks they seem important.
I’m too old for this shit so I largely ignore F and focus on my own work. Sadly, they’ve decided to appoint themselves as my ‘interim supervisor’ and try to micromanage me constantly. For the most part, I only speak to them when necessary and ignore their shit as I'm not in the mood to fight with a 21-year-old.
M has been on vacation for the last two weeks and honestly, it’s hell. Our line manager is never around and when they are around they’re too busy with us. They’ve spoken to me very disrespectfully on several occasions but I’ve let it go for the sake of keeping the peace. Needless to say, F lives in their pocket and follows them around like a little lost chick.
F takes everything extremely seriously and every piece of work assigned to our team is life or death which is absolutely not my way of doing things. F is also very close with D (40), our receptionist, who has an ego the size of the Hindenburg and also thinks that the world will end if the post hasn’t arrived by 9:30.
This week, however, F and D have been completely unbearable. There’ve been several incidents where I’ve had to stop myself from really snapping at them. Wednesday, I found out that the two have been telling S lies about me in regard to my approach to work.
D keeps calling me up with low-priority non-urgent tasks and demanding I do them immediately then gets incredibly frustrated when I tell them that I will pick them up when my current (priority) assignments are complete.
F had a near meltdown when they discovered a potential client had booked a demo for our product and they hadn’t been contacted within an hour of making their enquiry to the point they removed them from my work silo and contacted them themselves in a huff. Our contact target is 3 working days of the request being made but F insists that everyone has to be contacted, pitched to and booked within 15 minutes of submitting an enquiry.
Turns out, D and F went to S together on Wednesday morning and told them that I was actively ignoring customers (false and my KPI reports prove this), refusing to do work tasks assigned by D (false, also they’re not my manager and have no input on my workload), and don’t do enough work (false and once again proven by my reports – I do more numbers than F each week).
I’ve been holding in my frustrations with this dynamic for weeks but decided, fuck it, if you want to pitch then I’ll go to bat.
I refuted every single one of the claims but it was no use, S didn’t want to hear anything that went against the word of their office pet and I was given my marching papers for ‘giving attitude’.
Before this, S and I had barely spoken as they’re never in our office so I have no relationship whatsoever with them other than the occasional email request. They know I’m a good worker and I make good contributions to the team, but who cares, right? Even with evidence to refute every one of their lies, S had already sided with their pet. They refused to listen to me and fired me immediately when I tried to defend myself.
I'm just so tired of seeing the bad guys win and the balance of power being so skewed towards management and their favourites.