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Antiwork

Is it just me, or is my manager actually being picky?

I was just wondering about my position. My manager has been nagging me on performance issues for a while. I was really trying to appease her and thought the problem originally was just with me. It got to the point that she started mentioning performance reviews upcoming and how she really doesn't want to give me a bad review. This freaked me out and had me working overtime for the last couple of weeks. Also, I want to mention she started this pressure when we lost a team member and everyone's workload essentially doubled. Another person was hired at the same time as me, and she seems to be doing great in progress. So that also became somewhat depressing for me. Add also a few months after we lost the team member, my software started acting up and missing typos despite my settings matching hers exactly. Fast forward to now,…


I was just wondering about my position. My manager has been nagging me on performance issues for a while. I was really trying to appease her and thought the problem originally was just with me. It got to the point that she started mentioning performance reviews upcoming and how she really doesn't want to give me a bad review. This freaked me out and had me working overtime for the last couple of weeks.

Also, I want to mention she started this pressure when we lost a team member and everyone's workload essentially doubled. Another person was hired at the same time as me, and she seems to be doing great in progress. So that also became somewhat depressing for me. Add also a few months after we lost the team member, my software started acting up and missing typos despite my settings matching hers exactly.

Fast forward to now, she has given me a verbal warning, and now a written warning and performance reviews are next week, and I expect she won't have anything positive to say. After her verbal warning, I've been keeping track of any inconsistencies between work I'd submitted before, and she approved to go to clients and new work she keeps noting issues with. When confronted on the fact that she approved some and now she suddenly has issues with this same work she was very dismissive (oh well make sure to catch it next time but don't change things for clients, or she'll find some reason for why it works in that particular work but not in others, or just flat out say it's not wrong and not explain it to me and tell me just to leave it).

In my most recent submission even she herself noted that the content has significantly improved (I think this was because I called her out on always and only giving negative comments about work and told her it was demotivating me) but there was an issue with 1 typo that was copy pasted into 7 worksheets (that my system did not catch). Mind you I work on at least 15-30 worksheets a day so unless they want me being spell check it would be a major waste of my time to analyze my work like that for errors since the settings aren't working. I've also tried many different ways to play around with the settings, I proposed copying phrases into a Google doc or word so they'd catch the typos, and she said no for privacy issues. Like I am trying everything short of wasting hours reading each worksheet word for word to catch typos. (Also note that English isn't my first language, and she knows that, and despite completing my education in English and an English speaking country, I still struggle with spelling of words that are similar (ex compliant vs. complaint)

For this, she had me meet with our HR and told me that if things don't stop with the typos, she's going to have to consider further action. I asked her what this further action (in a previous meeting), and she said they might have to move me to another department. On the other hand, that was not the vibe I got from this meeting (it very much seemed like they would consider termination).

I've been a wreck since and spent the last week crying, depressed and filled with anxiety. To the point that my family is actually worried about me. I took a day off sick because it got so bad one of the days last week. Based on this, I (ie my fam pushed me to seek professional help) made an appointment with my Dr to try and get sick leave (my appointment is going to be right before my performance review).

I just don't want it to seem like I'm running away from the review because I am not , but I've never been this unsure of myself in a position. I am educated and have worked professional jobs before and never had a manager unhappy with me (I'm still in contact with most of my managers actually and would have no problem moving back to my old positions). The only difference in this job is that it's actually related to what I studied, and I'm genuinely interested in it. I don't know if this is actually me (underperforming) or if she has just started to pick on me for some reason (maybe cause I called her out on her inconsistencies? But I didn't mean to start a war. I was just defending myself and trying to prevent a reoccurance of issues).

Idk I guess just some advice on how to handle this situation would be appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

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