My situation
I am 27 years old. I work in fundraising. I am strongly reliant on my job to pay off my mortgage and living expenses. I am very good at my job and am considered to be the top performer amongst all of my colleagues and manager.
The problem
The workplace is toxic. My manager treats me unfairly and targets me and fails to do her job. The most significant issues are:
- Imposing more stringent standards on me when it comes to break times and financial targets.
- Giving favourable treatment to employees who are poor performers, who often take extended break times and have significant idle time without being called out on it.
- Failing to provide training to poor performers and barely doing any work herself eg yesterday my manager spent a significant chunk of time playing on her phone, chit chatting around the office and slacking off as we all were on the phones.
- Requiring me to come in on weekends or work harder to make up for the team's poor performance. (When I say there is a performance disparity, I really mean it. I am on about 239% of the KPI and the second highest performer is hitting about 80% KPI).
- Hiring the wrong people. She hired a team leader who, I kid you not, literally resigned on the second day of his job as he found calling too overwhelming. He was clearly not prepared or qualified for the role.
I am constantly upset, frustrated, bitter, resentful and angry every time I come home from work and these feelings have festered over time. It is an emotional rollercoaster working here and I am just exhausted. I recognise that this is not healthy for me from a mental health perspective, but I also realise that because of my reliance on this role, I could probably just about tolerate it (the alternative is to have to sell my home and move back with my parents again).
My efforts to find a solution
You may think that there are two solutions to my problem. Let me explain why they won't work.
Solution 1 – talk to upper management or HR. Unfortunately, this won't work. Without going into the details, having worked at this place for 3 years and understanding its inner workings, vibe and culture, I know as a matter of certainty that upper management or HR will not understand nor care.
Solution 2 – address the problem with my manager. The other day, my manager called me out on taking a 35 minute break (we're allowed 30 minutes). I told her that the call reports (which she no longer sends around because it would bad for her favourite colleague) literally have me doing 1-2 hours mre calling than everyone, and that everyone else in the team takes 40 minute breaks. We have a very long conversation about this, which I would say was the tipping point for me leaving. She denied that everyone else in the team was taking 40 minute breaks.
I kid you not, literally 20 minutes after meeting with her, the colleague sitting opposite me took a 20 minute break, returned to work, was playing games on her phone, and then started talking for 15 minutes with another colleague next to me. I immediately reported this to my manger, who said she would have a word with her the next day. This clearly has not occurred because yesterday she was doing exactly the same thing with extended breaks.
I could write a book, but to cut a long story short my manager doesn't care about treating employees fairly and is openly biased and unfair in a rather shocking way (totally unaware of it apparently).
So my solution…
I'm thinking of searching for another job. Getting an offer. When I get the offer I'll just tell my manager I've got family/personal issues and try to be put on unpaid leave.
If the other job works out for me and I like the place, I will end up resigning for good on account of family/personal issues; if not I will simply come back. Rinse and repeat that strategy until I find a better work environment.
I do not want to tell her I have another job offer as this will no doubt create feelings of disloyalty, and in the event that I want to return (having no other choice, because the job pays so well and allows me to service life expenses) I will have that option. Case in point – had a colleague who left in my first year, bragging about a job he had got elsewhere as manager. He was eventually let go at his new job due to a restructure, wanted to re-apply and my manager would not re-hire him. Was also a bad look as it looked like he was “Crawling back” in a rather pathetic way.
So If I tell them I've got family issues it will avoid that perception. Plus because of how niche this industry is it is impossible for my manager to find out about the new job. I do not have linkedin and I would not be thinking about the same kind of industry.
Thoughts?