I have worked in public administration since graduating from college. I have just over two years of professional experience in total. I recently got hired as a grant manager for the health department of my local very large urban county government. This position was advertised as a junior position, wherein I would do relatively basic clerical duties under general supervision.
In reality, I have been given managerial level control over six grants that give rental and housing assistance. I do all of the accounting/bookkeeping, monthly financial reports, monthly status reports, quarterly reports, database management, account reconciliation, manually process emergency rent payments, process payroll for the case workers, set up the budgets and allocate funds, account reconciliation, etc etc. everything you can think of. I manage these grants top to bottom until my manager needs to rubber stamp something.
I do not have any accounting experience, no accounting degree, no managerial experience whatsoever, no experience in financial services, and no experience in grant management. My only other professional job was as a junior grant writer, which is a completely different thing. I was not a manager. My only job before that was working retail in the mall.
I didn’t tell these people I had any relevant experience in the interview. As a matter of fact, they didn’t even ask me. I was hired instantly.
I was not told what sub department I was interviewing for. I only found out the department after I had accepted the official offer and sent them all paperwork, which was after I had accepted a preliminary offer and had to send a different set of paperwork. I didn’t even know the department I would be working in until a week before the start date, multiple months after I had already accepted the position. Yes, they took that long to process me. The hiring manager even joked about it. First red flag.
My job description does not match my job duties, neither does my title or salary. I am an entry level employee, but I find myself managing a huge series of grants alone and am responsible for hundreds of people getting their rent paid. This is for EMERGENCY rent payments, not regular housing assistance. If I’m late, they get evicted. I constantly hear our caseworkers down the hall fighting landlords who are threatening to evict our clients. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and my manager is absolutely malicious.
My manager told me last week that my “new hire phase“ ended after my second WEEK on the job, and that after then I did not have an excuse to not have all of the various deadlines and procedures memorized . She also said that if she knows there is an important deadline coming up and she thinks I am unaware of it or behind schedule, she is going to DELIBERATELY NOT TELL ME about it and allow the grant to fall through, so that I can “learn a lesson about meeting deadlines“.
I am routinely reprimanded for not meeting deadlines early enough. You heard that right. I have, somehow, done everything on time so far. That isn’t good enough around here, because other departments that must sign off on our documents and approve them are massively understaffed, and so my deadlines are deceptive. I get in trouble for not knowing the internal workings of departments that I don’t work in at this job that I’ve been at for two months.
She also recently told me that she does not approve of me leaving work at the end of my shift. She expects multiple hours of UNPAID overtime, multiple days a week. I can only ever get 80 hours a pay period, she will never approve more than that no matter how much extra I am made to work to meet deadlines.
I have to follow up with her multiple times a day and let her know what I am doing at all times, where she critiques me for not prioritizing my tasks appropriately. she of course gives no guidance the priority list until it’s time to chew me out. This isn’t a remote position, she’s right down the hall but still requires this kind of micromanaging. I can even send an email without managerial approval. She requires me to share my screen on Zoom and let her read and approve an email before sending.
She also routinely loses paperwork I send to her to get signed, and she has narrowly avoided missing everyone’s rent for the month two months in a row because she gets so behind. I send her things multiple times across multiple days but when she inevitably forgets I get reprimanded again for not “following up enough.”
I can’t even ask her for guidance and instructions because she has been refusing to answer my questions. She only ever answers a question with another question. If I ask how to do something, what supporting documentation to add where, what order to do things, she NEVER tells me, deliberately. She will only answer with “What do you think? What were you told before?” Or she will literally just blankly stare at me. When I ask why she is doing this, she says it’s because she needs to hear me say it because I “need to learn”. What does that even mean? I’m asking you so I can learn! She is refusing to cooperate outright!
I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure I can survive even until New Year. She is my only supervisor, and there is definitely an “in crowd” here. I can’t go to her boss or to someone else because they are all friends!
Do I quit? I really need help here.
Thanks for reading.