I'm the lead on a team at a company that's predominantly a call center, but my team works in a different capacity; essentially I'm the supervisor for my department. I was promoted to the lead position near the beginning of 2022, and from minute one I've felt very lucky to work with my team. They're great employees, and I really try my best to look out for them.
A couple of months into my tenure as the lead, our manager went on leave for what I assumed might be a month at most. I decided to fill in the gaps in light of their absence because I figured it'd be good to learn about the management element of my team and what those responsibilities are like. It's now November, and I've been doing both the lead and management jobs for several months with no timeframe for the manager's return and no word about filling their position. My team is incredible and they've really owned their work, but I can tell they're upset about not having a proper management chain, and I can't devote as much time to them as I normally would because my management duties keep me in so many meetings that there are days when I barely see my team.
I should also mention that I'm still only receiving a lead's salary. I'd like to move into management and promote someone else on my team into the lead role so that my team has a solid leadership group (and so I don't have to do two jobs concurrently for the lower-paying salary), but every time I've brought that up, it's fallen on deaf ears.
I'm burned out. I've brought that up to several people above me, and each time I've only been met with platitudes about handing off responsibilities to other people on my team, but I don't know how that's feasible. Everything I do is at a lead level or higher, and the people on my team are already doing enough work without being handed more stuff.
We're gearing up to do performance reviews for my department, and because I'm literally the only employee who's been around my team all year, I have to do reviews for the entire department, including the people who don't technically report to me. I truly believe everyone on my team deserves a raise because they've been owning their work and most folks have gone above and beyond despite not having a manager, but I can already tell that the people I have to convince won't see it that way, especially since I have to rank every person on my team and there are limits to the budget that can be allocated to my team members. Not to mention that I have no idea whatsoever about how my own review is going to be handled.
I can't quit this job because the market is insane where I live, but I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm dreading completing these reviews for my team because I know I'm going to have to disappoint some of them and they all deserve so much more than what I know I'm going to be able to give them.
TL;DR: I'm a supervisor who's stuck doing two jobs and having to disappoint my awesome team based on company budgetary restrictions.