I posted this in OffMyChest as a general rant. I'd like to post this here because it just feels like it belongs.
I'm honestly pretty upset. I understand why I was placed on a PIP, but I'm annoyed it was this late. Also, some of the details of the PIP itself are concerning.
In May, my mental health medicines stopped working. Without going into details, my husband was extremely close to sending me to the hospital. A lot of the stress was due to being overworked.
Because my medicine stopped working, I began to struggle with work. I began missing deadlines, forgot to turn in my time sheets, and was not super responsive to Teams messages (I'm fully remote).
My husband had a suggestion. Why not take a few days off of work, and see if that improves my mental health? If it didn't, he may still encourage me to go to the hospital, but he thought this may be worth trying first.
I go to my supervisor and HR and explain the situation. My supervisor tells me that my mental health is more important than work and that she will help me get some time off. There was one problem, though. My supervisor gave her two week notice moments before my call. So, my few days off would need to be before she leaves, so that work doesn't get stuck in limbo.
So, I took about 3 days off during the first week of June. During that time, I contacted my doctor to get my meds back on track. I relaxed. When I came back, while I wasn't 100% better, I was clear headed enough to take work seriously again.
Within a few days of being back, it was announced the head of another department would be stepping up and serving as my department head in addition to his current role, while they try to fill my supervisor's position.
Within a week of me being back, I was pulled into a meeting with the interim director and HR, where they went over my performance issues and told me to get my act together. I commented something along the lines of, “of course, and I know at least HR is aware that the reason I was struggling with work was due to some ongoing health issues.”
Since that day, I've worked my ass off to ensure that I was back on the right track. I can only think of two times where it was brought to my attention an assignment or time sheet was late/missing. When it was brought to my attention, I fixed it within an hour or two.
I understand time sheets being late is a problem, but I thought the assignment being a day late wasn't. After all, the other members of my team had many late assignments due to roadblocks on getting the proper information. Since that's what happened on my assignment, I thought no one would say anything about it.
Well, I was wrong. Yesterday I get pulled into a meeting with HR and the interim director. They tell me, “You're doing better, but…” and proceeded to put me on a performance improvement plan.
Before we even begin going into details, I'm annoyed. I mean, it's been a month since we last spoke and I have improved significantly. Being told to fix something two times feels entirely normal to me, especially considering how many times my other team members are told the same thing.
Then, we get into the details of the PIP, and I become angry. Some of it made sense at first. It talked about turning in time sheets by the end of the day, responding to teams messages, etc. Then, two things stuck out to me.
The first was a bullet point about ensuring I'm there during “working hours,” which to them means 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM EST. When I got hired by a different supervisor that I haven't otherwise mentioned in this post, he told me, “You could work 8 AM to 4 PM or 9 AM to 5 PM. They're pretty flexible.” When I brought that up I was told, “Well, that was your old supervisor's policy. Company policy are these hours.” I have no problem working that extra hour. After all, I'm salaried. What I do have a problem with is people acting like this is something I would've known. I have not received any feedback about this being a problem. I rarely receive any Teams messages or meetings prior to 9 AM or after 5 PM, so I thought everyone else was keeping those hours, too. Plus, I frequently put in extra hours after dinner or on the weekends to ensure work is getting done.
The second alarming point in the PIP was something about “improving my skills critical to the job.” They were specific about what skills, but I'm not going into details in order to keep this vague. I had received feedback that my work for maybe 2 clients (out of the 15-20 I work with) could be improved. However, these were all brand new clients to me. Some of the clients were new to our organization, others were previously handled by my supervisor and are now on my plate. I wasn't informed of the clients' wants or needs prior to me working with them. When I asked the client's account managers for details, I wasn't given any. On top of it, when I asked how my performance on this task will be measured, HR and the interim supervisor said they didn't know. I asked what I could do to improve my skills. I mean, if they're suggesting it, surely they have some courses or something I could take, right? No. They didn't have any suggestions on how to improve said skill set.
HR and the interim supervisor tried to frame this as a “chance to grow,” which is hard for me to believe whenever they have no suggestions on how to go about said growth. Also, both of them conveniently had to get to their next meeting and made sure to cut this one off at exactly 30 minutes. The kicker? They did not address how after 30 days my overall employment with the company will be re-evaluated. They absolutely did not tell me I could be fired if I don't meet their standards. I only found this out after the interim supervisor sent me a copy of the PIP for me to reference. When the interim supervisor shared his screen to show the PIP, it's pretty clear he chose not to scroll all the way down to showcase the entire document.
I almost gave my two week's notice right during that PIP meeting, but I wasn't sure if I was just too upset to think clearly. I talked to my husband later about it, and he said he would've left without looking back. The problem is, we only have a couple of months of emergency savings. I'm the primary breadwinner, so if I'm without a job, we're screwed. I do have wealthy and supportive parents who I could turn to if I ended up in a really shitty situation, but I don't want to rely on them.
I've already been looking for new jobs, since I feel one huge contributing factor in my almost mental health breakdown was my workplace. I mean, I've been with this company for only a year and I'm now on my third (interim) supervisor because my last two couldn't stand working here. Plus, the company itself is doing very poorly financially, and I don't want to be on a sinking ship. My old supervisor informed me that there are rumors the CEO is thinking of selling the company. Overall, I need to get out of here but finding a new job that's fully remote or nearby and pays the same as my current salary is difficult.