Hi all. I don't know why I'm posting this, for validation or for venting or for what. Mostly I just feel sort of insane and incredibly alone and isolated, and wanted to put this out in case anyone else is going through something similar somewhere and needs the validation too.
For some background, I work for a city government entity for a small town. Our entire “department” only has 3 employees; one director and 2 part-time that do separate tasks. Previously, my current position was split up into 2 separate part-time positions where we did the same tasks but only worked about 5 hours a day. About a year ago, my previous director told us she would be leaving for a better opportunity and gave us the option to apply for her position before the job was even posted. My coworker and I both applied, and my coworker ended up getting hired over me. That's fine and fair, except I feel that my coworker was undeserving of the promotion, and I was expected to train her to competence. There's lots of things at play that make this situation just a toxic mess, and it's making me lose my mind honestly.
I'm aware this is a long story, so I apologize for the wall of text.
I know it's natural to feel like you do more work than your coworkers, but this coworker was genuinely useless. There were multiple times where I would show up to work during our ~1-3 hour overlap, and she would just sit beside me and chit-chat with my director or customers while I did coding work and more “advanced” tasks involved with our job. She has also piggybacked onto ideas that were mine, and continues to brag about them to this day despite doing nothing to help with them. Oftentimes, my shift would consist of walking her through a basic task that was part of our everyday responsibilties. I was constantly fixing mistakes that she made, because she was careless and didn't pay attention to details when doing daily tasks. She also lacks basic computer skills which is 90% of our job. I got exasperated about this a few times and brought it up to my previous director, who agreed with me. This resulted in a couple work improvement plans where my coworker was given direction to take computer skills classes (provided for free by our state government), as well as include herself in more of the advanced tasks instead of passing them onto me. My coworker just… didn't do it, and my previous director let it slide. There are admittedly multiple personal reasons I don't like this person, too, and when this whole drama happened, I found out she had been saying terrible things about me behind my back the whole time I thought we were at least friendly. I did confront her about these things and it didn't go well. There were also times my boundaries were crossed and I was told I was being too sensitive when I asked her to stop. I don't want to get into the personal issues too much because I feel like they make the whole situation messier, but I want to acknowledge that there ARE personal issues at play, too, and I'm not completely neutral on this person.
I don't mean for this to sound braggy, but I do want to highlight the fact that I have worked hard to have more than enough qualifications for the promotion I was gearing for. I have a lot of passion for the work I do and have been excited since my first day to be a part of it and excited for the potential to move up. I have given my all to this job, and pushed myself outside of my comfort zone countless times. I'm admittedly not perfect and still have weaknesses, and I don't have management experience, but I've gotten compliment after compliment about my growth and appreciation from the people I serve, and from my previous director. I've attended numerous trainings, participated in grant opportunities, ran separate programs on my own, and taught myself skills through trial and error and just genuine interest in the work I do. I did extra training at home just because I genuinely enjoyed the work and found it fun and interesting. This job typically requires a master's degree (because we're a small town, we get away with not having a degree) and I've done my best to bring myself up to a level playing field by pure work ethic, passion, and putting in effort to learn on my own. I've gotten compliments from other professionals in the industry for having the knowledge I do without higher education. My director was very transparent with both of us, and included us in her job, decision-making, and allowed us “behind the scenes” to see what her job entailed. She acknowledged that she was training us to take her place. I often felt like I was the only one actually grasping things from her demonstrations and trainings, and my coworker was often on her phone in the middle of them, and a lot of times she would have tons of follow up questions for me because she didn't fully understand what was being shown to us.
Everything went really wrong because upper management got involved with the hiring process when they didn't need to. Instead of my previous director, who worked with us every day and knew the ins and outs of the position, being in charge of hiring, it was left up to the manager who has nothing to do with our department and rarely comes around or asks about our projects or developments. Once my previous director's resignation notice was up and she left, it was basically an unspoken expectation that training my new director was up to me. My new director was asking me daily about basic computer skills, including how to input numbers into an Excel spreadsheet (something we did every day as part of our job), how to work her email, and how to find previously saved documents. On top of this, she was asking questions about the position that I genuinely had no clue about. Her questions were generally either a) things that she SHOULD have known had she paid attention to anything our previous director provided us or b) things that, if I were in her position, I would have to find out by trial and error and asking outside sources. I found it extremely insulting to be passed up for a promotion for someone who cannot do basic tasks, and then expected to hold their hand as they “learned” the new position. I was terrified that if I helped, it would be exactly like our previous position where I was doing all of the heavy lifting while she signed her name onto it, except this time she got the extra pay, benefits, hours, and credit for it. I was scared that if I helped, it would turn into her delegating her tasks to me because I “do them better”. I want to add that this is a position where there are very strictly laid out job duties and expectations, not just a position where a manager comes in and delegates tasks to the team. The director is a separate position and title for a reason, and it's not the same as a standard manager position.
I feel like I was put in an awkward position where I could choose to refuse or be a doormat. I met with upper management and shared how I felt with them, asking them for feedback on why I wasn't chosen, and told them point blank that I felt like I was being taken advantage of. They had no feedback for me, except a vague statement of “We think you'd be a great director, just not yet.” When I asked them to elaborate, the only thing that they brought up was that I didn't have a driver's license, which is irrelevent to the job as it requires absolutely no driving besides commuting to and from work which I already do with no issue. I asked them for a specific list of job duties, to confirm that it wasn't my place to train someone above me. They promised they would, but still a year later I have yet to see my job duties in writing. They did give me a small raise, which I am privileged to have, but all of my concerns were dismissed, and I was instead given “team communication” trainings and trainings that had to do with “positivity in the workplace”. I started answering my new director's questions with “I don't know” or “I'm not sure”. I also made it a point to be incredibly busy so she couldn't ask me to leave my work to help with hers.
A few months in, my new director lost it on me one day and told me I was being unfair, that I was punishing her for things she didn't do, and that I was purposely not being a team player. She told me that my boundaries were unfair, and I asked her if it was affecting my job performance. She told me that it was affecting HER'S, and that our job should be fun and she should have someone to “bounce ideas off of”. I was personally triggered by the interaction as I felt like she cornered me with no warning, and she was raising her voice and posturing up to me. I filled out a grievance form with HR but was generally made to feel like it wasn't a big deal.
It's been a year now, and things have just gradually gotten worse. I've fixed mistakes that she's made because they interfered with my ability to do my job, but out of guilt I didn't make a big deal about them. She's managed to pawn small tasks off onto me, but I still have held fast in not helping her but the guilt eats me alive. My coworker quit due to the new director micromanaging her and constantly criticizing her. That person's replacement is now also complaining about the same thing. It seems my new director is getting fed up with me as she's now directing criticism and micromanaging onto me, and she has accused me twice now of purposely keeping things from her to sabotage her when I'm genuinely just trying to quietly do my job and go home. She's also tried twice now to hand off one of the most intensive parts of being director (basically setting long-term goals and implementing policies, programs, projects, and using grant opportunities to meet them). I'm dealing with a new anxiety attack every week because I have to set another boundary, and then deal with the guilt of it as well as talking myself out of the shame of feeling not good enough or that I deserve the criticism, and then anxiety about wondering when I'll finally be fired for not being a “team player”.
I'm admittedly a people pleaser and still working on proper boundaries and not feeling guilty for having needs or emotions. I don't know which way is up anymore. I feel absolutely gaslit by everyone around me, and I feel like my concerns are dismissed away because people see me as a petty, resentful person who is lashing out because they didn't get the job. Even my therapist told me that I am playing the victim unnecessarily, and that I was using my resentment to be a toxic coworker. I gaslight myself by telling myself that I need to get over it, that it isn't a big deal, and telling myself that I am misreading the situation because of my resentment for not getting the job. I admittedly was resentful and still am, and it's hard to balance that and not feel guilty for it. Despite my personal issues with this person, I still have an empathy for them that I can't turn off, and I know they are insecure and trying to figure things out and I'm not making it easier for them. I know I could have chosen to suck it up and be “the bigger person”, which I tried for a short amount of time but that made me feel terrible, too.
I still feel angry and hate going into a job I used to love. I feel like this person used me as a stepping stone, and worse I feel angry because I feel like I allowed it to happen. I don't even talk at work anymore because I don't feel any sort of trust in my workplace or my new director, and I'm not sure what will be used against me or what will set her off. It's overall very toxic and I feel stuck and lost. I flip-flop between feeling incredibly empowered, setting boundaries and being strong, and feeling absolutely guilty and shameful because I've basically stonewalled this person. It's also been a harsh awakening to the reality of being “career-oriented”, the games you have to play to get ahead, and the extent of toxicity that happens in workplaces. I was excited to move up in my career, but now I'm questioning if I even care about a career at all.
I am incredibly privileged to have my job and it's not something I can give up easily, but this situation has destroyed all of my passion and is quite literally making me rethink my life. I know quitting is the best option, but it's not realistically an option for the area I live in. I also know that my behavior has likely destroyed any and all chance of me getting promoted or being respected if my new director decides to leave.
TL;DR My coworker was hired above me despite me being more qualified, and I was expected by her & upper management to train her into competency. I'm now dealing with extreme burnout, anxiety, depression, and guilt for refusing to help and dealing with the consequences of that. I don't have the option to quit or move laterally because of the area I live in and the small department size. I feel lost, confused, and angry, and feel like my feelings have nowhere to go. I hope this post can help someone else feel seen, and bring me at least some catharsis on the situation.