This is very long, I’m looking for serious advice and I apologize for how long it’ll take to get through!
Basically, I started a new job a couple months ago after my significant other passed away and I had been on bereavement leave. My old job was not something I wanted to do long term and I went into a completely different industry. I adore my new boss and we are at a pretty small company with only two offices. The office I work in is the bigger of the two and is run by the owner of the company, the other office is run by his son.
In my interviews, I had exclusively discussed with my boss and the company owner that one of my primary responsibilities in my position would be running the company’s social media to help them grow and keep up with modern times. The owner is about 80, and I am one of maybe 2 or 3 people below the age of 30 at my company. I’ve only been here a few months, but within a week of starting I could feel and tell something was up with the other office.
In my office, everyone was nice and welcoming. I made some plans for social media posts to do what I interviewed for. Right away the other office location was not warm and welcoming. My boss quickly received an email with snarky comments about my social media ideas from the owner’s son. As my boss and I are the only ones in our department, marketing, social media, and communications are completely our responsibility, and no one else’s responsibilities at the company have any crossover with ours. My experience in social media runs very deep as I have worked for a prestigious media company and done multiple internships revolving around that, and have run my own personal successful pages. I am also very young and the only person from our company to have truly grown up with social media and have been using it since I was 11. Someone from the other office began to post on the social media accounts without our permission and overlapping with our scheduled posts. We thought we could solve this by making a simple google form where people could openly submit ideas for posts, but instead received more snarky emails and push back. The owner is your typical old man who is too old to be in the workforce. I haven’t had to interact with him too much besides him making degrading comments towards me (asking my boss if I’ve messed up yet, telling me not to get too excited about doing things right) and accusing me of deleting his files (he deleted his own files). I enjoy the work itself a lot more than my old job, so that doesn’t affect me negatively. Flash forward a few weeks, I’ve continued to notice small aggressions and rudeness from the other office. They never respond to a single email, then get mad when they’re not included. They complain about things, then contradict themselves and critique their own solutions to their own complaints. They are the rudest people I have ever met in my entire professional career. They are not welcoming, kind, or supportive. They don’t care about growth or change. I’ve heard they’re that way because of some drama that happened before I was even born. As a young professional who is also actively grieving, it is extremely difficult for me to fathom the thought of putting up with people who truly have no idea how good they have it. They know nothing about me, who I am, what I’ve been through, etc. and every last one of them has been extremely rude to not only me, but others in my office. And no one does anything about it. The worst of them all is the owner’s son. He kisses his dad’s ass then does not hesitate to be rude and cruel with everyone else. I have no doubts he would be terminated at literally any other company. He actively prevents my boss and I from doing our jobs by never communicating with us or doing anything we ask, then complains that we aren’t doing our jobs. It’s an endless whirlwind of shit and his dad never says anything to him about his behavior. He is constantly saying rude things to me and my boss (feels very misogynistic), making rude remarks, and just being a dick because he can. We don’t have leadership, we have bosses. I’m not sure what to do because my boss that I love so much is thinking of going to a new role, and I’ve only been at this company for two months. The crappy thing is, I like what I am doing at work so much more than my old job and don’t think I’m qualified to move to a similar position yet. If the owner of our company decided to stop working, the son would take over, so realistically I won’t be here for super long. I don’t want to be too job hoppy or overreact, but I’m nervous about how much growth I will be able to do given that our leadership is only men ages 55+ who have no desire for change and actively prevent growth from happening due to their own fears and issues. It’s extremely irritating and I think I will need to push through this until I can go to a younger, more progressive company.
I’m scared of exploding on them and quitting on the spot since my grief has had that effect on me, and after dating the most positive, kind, gentle, and lovely man in the world who lost his life, it disgusts me that people who are so rude and terrible get to run around and use their precious time on this planet treating other people so poorly. Its not fair. I know I can’t let my personal life affect my professional life, but my significant other passing has changed my general life perspectives. He is such an amazing and kind person and I am now surrounded by assholes.
What should I do? How do I navigate this situation? If anyone has or knows of marketing/communications jobs, I am willing to look into new opportunities.